AMERICANS   AND  OTHERS 


AMERICANS 
AND  OTHERS 


BY 


AGNES   REPPLIER,  Lrrr.D. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

Cbe  ttifeetfiDe  pre#  Cambnbgf 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,    IQia,   BY   AGNES   REPPLIER 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October  IQIS 


I 


Note 

FIVE  of  the  essays  in  this  volume  appear  in 
print  for  the  first  time.   Others  have  been  pub 
lished  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the    Century 
Magazine,  Harper's  Bazar,  and  the   Catholic 
*  World. 


252722 


Contents 

A  Question  of  Politeness  i 

The  Mission  of  Humour  29 

Goodness  and  Gayety  58 

The  Nervous  Strain  85 

The  Girl  Graduate  99 

The  Estranging  Sea  119 

Travellers'  Tales  141 

The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm  155 

The  Temptation  of  Eve  173 
"The  Greatest  of  These  is  Charity"  208 

The  Customary  Correspondent  219 

The  Benefactor  237 

The  Condescension  of  Borrowers  252 

The  Grocer's  Cat  273 


CALIFORNIA 

AMERICANS   AND 
OTHERS 

A  Question  of  Politeness 

"La  politesse  de  1'esprit  consiste  a  penser  des 
choses  honnetes  et  d^licates." 

A  GREAT  deal  has  been  said  and 
written  during  the  past  few  years 
on  the  subject  of  American  man 
ners,  and  the  consensus  of  opinion  is,  on 
the  whole,  unfavourable.  We  have  been 
told,  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,  that  f 
we  are  not  a  polite  people ;  and  our  • 
critics  have  cast  about  them  for  causes 
which  may  be  held  responsible  for  such 
a  universal  and  lamentable  result.  Mr. 
Thomas  Nelson  Page,  for  example,  is  by 
way  of  thinking  that  the  fault  lies  in  the 
sudden  expansion  of  wealth,  in  the  in 
trusion  into  the  social  world  of  people 
who  fail  to  understand  its  requirements, 
and  in  the  universal  "spoiling"  of  Ameri- 


Americans  and  Others 

can  children.  He  contrasts  the  South  of 
his  childhood,  that  wonderful  "  South  be 
fore  the  war,"  which  looms  vaguely,  but 
very  grandly,  through  a  half-century's 
haze,  with  the  New  York  of  to-day, 
which,  alas !  has  nothing  to  soften  its 
outlines.  A  more  censorious  critic  in  the 
"  Atlantic  Monthly  "  has  also  stated  ex 
plicitly  that  for  true  consideration  and 
courtliness  we  must  hark  back  to  certain 
old  gentlewomen  of  ante-bellum  days. 
"  None  of  us  born  since  the  Civil  War 
approach  them  in  respect  to  some  fine, 
nameless  quality  that  gives  them  charm 
and  atmosphere."  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  the  war,  with  its  great  emotions  and 
its  sustained  heroism,  imbued  us  with 
national  life  at  the  expense  of  our  national 
manners. 

I  wonder  if  this  kind  of  criticism  does 
not  err  by  comparing  the  many  with  the 
few,  the  general  with  the  exceptional.  I 
wonder  if  the  deficiencies  of  an  imperfect 
civilization  can  be  accounted  for  along 

2 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

such  obvious  lines.  The  self-absorption 
of  youth  which  Mrs.  Comer  deprecates, 
the  self-absorption  of  a  crowd  which 
offends  Mr.  Page,  are  human,  not  Amer 
ican.  The  nature  of  youth  and  the  nature 
of  crowds  have  not  changed  essentially 
since  the  Civil  War,  nor  since  the  Punic 
Wars\Granted  that  the  tired  and  hun 
gry  citizens  of  New  York,  jostling  one 
another  in  their  efforts  to  board  a  home 
ward  train,  present  an  unlovely  spectacle ; 
but  do  they,  as  Mr.  Page  affirms,  reveal 
"  such  sheer  and  primal  brutality  as  can 
be  found  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
where  men  and  women  are  together?" 
Crowds  will  jostle,  and  have  always  jos 
tled,  since  men  first  clustered  in  com 
munities.  Read  Theocritus.  The  hurry 
ing  Syracusans  —  third  century  B.C. — 
"  rushed  like  a  herd  of  swine,"  and  rent 
in  twain  Praxinoe's  muslin  veil.  Look  at 
Hogarth.  The  whole  fun  of  an  eight 
eenth-century  English  crowd  consisted 
in  snatching  off  some  unfortunate's  wig, 
3 


Americans  and  Others 

or  toppling  him  over  into  the  gutter. 
The  truth  is  we  sin  against  civilization 
when  we  consent  to  flatten  ourselves 
against  our  neighbours.  The  experience 
of  the  world  has  shown  conclusively  that 
a  few  inches  more  or  less  of  breathing 
space  make  all  the  difference  between  a 
self-respecting  citizen  and  a  savage. 

As  for  youth,  —  ah,  who  shall  be  brave 
enough,  who  has  ever  been  brave  enough, 
to  defend  the  rising  generation?  Who 
has  ever  looked  with  content  upon  the 
young,  save  only  Plato,  and  he  lived  in 
an  age  of  symmetry  and  order  which  we 
can  hardly  hope  to  reproduce.  The  short 
comings  of  youth  are  so  pitilessly,  so 
glaringly  apparent.  Not  a  rag  to  cover 
them  from  the  discerning  eye.  And  what 
a  veil  has  fallen  between  us  and  the 
years  of  our  offending.  There  is  no  illu 
sion  so  permanent  as  that  which  enables 
us  to  look  backward  with  complacency ; 
there  is  no  mental  process  so  deceptive 
as  the  comparing  of  recollections  with 
4 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

realities.  How  loud  and  shrill  the  voice 
of  the  girl  at  our  elbow.  How  soft  the 
voice  which  from  the  far  past  breathes 
its  gentle  echo  in  our  ears.  How  bounc 
ing  the  vigorous  young  creatures  who 
surround  us,  treading  us  under  foot  in 
the  certainty  of  their  self-assurance.  How 
sweet  and  reasonable  the  pale  shadows 
who  smile  —  we  think  appealingly  — 
from  some  dim  corner  of  our  memories. 
There  is  a  passage  in  the  diary  of  Louisa 
Gurney,  a  carefully  reared  little  Quaker 
girl  of  good  family  and  estate,  which  is 
dated  1796,  and  which  runs  thus:- 

"  I  was  in  a  very  playing  mood  to-day, 
and  thoroughly  enjoyed  being  foolish, 
and  tried  to  be  as  rude  to  everybody  as 
I  could.  We  went  on  the  highroad  for  the 
purpose  of  being  rude  to  the  folks  that 
passed.  I  do  think  being  rude  is  most 
pleasant  sometimes." 

Let  us  hope  that  the  grown-up  Louisa 
Gurney,  whenever  she  felt  disposed  to 
cavil  at  the  imperfections  of  the  rising 
5 


Americans  and  Others 

generation  of  1840  or  1850,  re-read  these 
illuminating  words,  and  softened  her 
judgment  accordingly. 

New  York  has  been  called  the  most 
insolent  city  in  the  world.  To  make  or  to 
refute  such  a  statement  implies  so  wide 
a  knowledge  of  contrasted  civilizations 
that  to  most  of  us  the  words  have  no 
significance.  It  is  true  that  certain  com 
munities  have  earned  for  themselves  in 
the  course  of  centuries  an  unenviable  re 
putation  for  discourtesy.  The  Italians  say 
"as  rude  as  a  Florentine  "  ;  and  even  the 
casual  tourist  (presuming  his  standard  of 
manners  to  have  been  set  by  Italy)  is  dis 
posed  to  echo  the  reproach.  The  Roman, 
with  the  civilization  of  the  world  at  his 
back,  is  naturally,  one  might  say  inevit 
ably,  polite.  His  is  that  serious  and  sim 
ple  dignity  which  befits  his  high  inherit 
ance.  But  the  Venetian  and  the  Sienese 
have  also  a  grave  courtesy  of  bearing, 
compared  with  which  the  manners  of  the 
Florentine  seem  needlessly  abrupt.  We 
6 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

can  no  more  account  for  this  than  we  can 
account  for  the  churlishness  of  the  Vau- 
dois,  who  is  always  at  some  pains  to  be 
rude,  and  the  gentleness  of  his  neighbour, 
the  Valaisan,  to  whom  breeding  is  a  birth 
right,  born,  it  would  seem,  of  generosity 
of  heart,  and  a  scorn  of  ignoble  things. 

But  such  generalizations,  at  all  times 
i  perilous,  become  impossible  in  the  chang- 
J  ing  currents  of  American  life,  which  has 
as  yet  no  quality  of  permanence.  The 
delicate  old  tests  fail  to  adjust  themselves 
to  our  needs.  Mr.  Page  is  right  theoret 
ically  when  he  says  that  the  treatment  of 
a  servant  or  of  a  subordinate  is  an  infal 
lible  criterion  of  manners,  and  when  he 
rebukes  the  "arrogance"  of  wealthy 
women  to  "  their  hapless  sisters  of  toil." 
But  the  truth  is  that  our  hapless  sisters 
of  toil  have  things  pretty  much  their  own 
way  in  a  country  which  is  still  broadly 
prosperous  and  democratic,  and  our 
treatment  of  them  is  tempered  by  a  self 
ish  consideration  for  our  own  comfort 
7 


Americans  and  Others 

and  convenience.  If  they  are  toiling  as 
domestic  servants,  —  a  field  in  which  the 
demand  exceeds  the  supply,  —  they 
hold  the  key  to  the  situation  ;  it  is  sheer 
foolhardiness  to  be  arrogant  to  a  cook. 
Dressmakers  and  milliners  are  not  hum 
bly  seeking  for  patronage ;  theirs  is  the 
assured  position  of  people  who  can  give 
the  world  what  the  world  asks ;  and  as 
for  saleswomen,  a  class  upon  whom  much 
sentimental  sympathy  is  lavished  year 
by  year,  their  heart-whole  supercilious 
ness  to  the  poor  shopper,  especially  if 
she  chance  to  be  a  housewife  striving 
nervously  to  make  a  few  dollars  cover 
her  family  needs,  is  wantonly  and  detest 
ably  unkind.  It  is  not  with  us  as  it  was 
,in  the  England  of  Lamb's  day,  and  the 
WyilitY  flf  hrppHinor  js  shown  in  a  well- 
Jpractised  restraint  rather  than  in  a  sweet 
and  somewhat  lofty  consideration. 

Eliminating  all  the  more  obvious  fea 
tures  of  criticism,  as  throwing  no  light 
upon  the  subject,  we  come  to  the  con- 
8 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

sideration  of  three  points, — the  domestic, 
the  official,  and  the  social  manners  of  a 
nation  which  has  been  roundly  accused 
of  degenerating  from  the  high  standard 
of  former  years,  of  those  gracious  and 
beautiful  years  which  few  of  us  have  the 
good  fortune  to  remember.  On  the  first 
count,  I  believe  that  a  candid  and  care 
ful  observation  will  result  in  a  verdict  of 
acquittal.  Foreigners,  Englishmen  and 
Englishwomen  especially,  who  visit  our 
shores,  are  impressed  with  the  politeness 
of  Americans  in  their  own  households. 
That  fine  old  Saxon  point  of  view,  "  What 
\  is  the  good  of  a  family,  if  one  cannot  be 
disagreeable  in  the  bosom  of  it?"  has 
been  modified  by  the  simple  circumstance 
that  the  family  bosom  is  no  longer  a  fixed 
and  permanent  asylum.  The  disintegra 
tion  of  the  home  may  be  a  lamentable 
feature  of  modern  life;  but  since  it  has 
dawned  upon  our  minds  that  adult  mem 
bers  of  a  family  need  not  necessarily  live 
together  if  they  prefer  to  live  apart,  the 
9 


Americans  and  Others 

1  strain  of  domesticity  has  been  reduced 
to  the  limits  of  endurance.  We  have 
gained  in  serenity  what  we  have  lost  in 
self-discipline  by  this  easy  achievement  of 
an  independence  which,  fifty  years  ago, 
would  have  been  deemed  pure  licence. 
I  can  remember  that,  when  I  was  a  little 
girl,  two  of  our  neighbours,  a  widowed 
mother  and  a  widowed  daughter,  scan 
dalized  all  their  friends  by  living  in  two 
large  comfortable  houses,  a  stone's  throw 
apart,  instead  of  under  one  roof  as  be 
came  their  relationship  ;  and  the  fact  that 
they  loved  each  other  dearly  and  peace 
fully  in  no  way  lessened  their  trans 
gression.  Had  they  shared  their  home, 
and  bickered  day  and  night,  that  would 
have  been  considered  unfortunate  but 
"natural." 

If  the  discipline  of  family  life  makes 
for  law  and  order,  for  the  subordination  of 
parts  to  the  whole,  and  for  the  prompt  re 
cognition  of  authority ;  if,  in  other  words, 
it  makes,  as  in  the  days  of  Rome,  for 
10 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

citizenship,  the  rescue  of  the  individual 
makes  for  social  intercourse,  for  that  tem 
perate  and  reasoned  attitude  which  be 
gets  courtesy.  The  modern  mother  may 
lack  influence  and  authority;  but  she 
speaks  more  urbanely  to  her  children 
than  her  mother  spoke  to  her.  The  mod 
ern  child  is  seldom  respectful,  but  he  is 
often  polite,  with  a  politeness  which  owes 
nothing  to  intimidation.  The  harsh  and 
wearisome  habit  of  contradiction,  which 
used  to  be  esteemed  a  family  privilege, 
has  been  softened  to  a  judicious  dissent. 
In  my  youth  I  knew  several  old  gentle 
men  who  might,  on  their  death-beds,  have 
laid  their  hands  upon  their  hearts,  and 
have  sworn  that  never  in  their  whole  lives 
had  they  permitted  any  statement,  how 
ever  insignificant,  to  pass  uncontradicted 
in  their  presence.  They  were  authorita 
tive  old  gentlemen,  kind  husbands  after 
their  fashion,  and  careful  fathers ;  but  con 
versation  at  their  dinner-tables  was  not 
for  human  delight. 

ii 


Americans  and  Others 

The  manners  of  American  officials 
have  been  discussed  with  more  or  less 
acrimony,  and  always  from  the  stand 
point  of  personal  experience.  The  Cus 
tom-House  is  the  centre  of  attack,  and 
critics  for  the  most  part  agree  that  the 
men  whose  business  it  is  to  "  hold  up  "  re 
turning  citizens  perform  their  ungracious 
task  ungraciously.  Theirs  is  rather  the 
attitude  of  the  detective  dealing  with  sus 
pected  criminals  than  the  attitude  of  the 
public  servant  impersonally  obeying  or 
ders.  It  is  true  that  even  on  the  New 
York  docks  one  may  encounter  civility 
and  kindness.  There  are  people  who  as 
sure  us  that  they  have  never  encountered 
anything  else  ;  but  then  there  are  people 
who  would  have  us  believe  that  always 
and  under  all  circumstances  they  meet 
with  the  most  distinguished  considera 
tion.  They  intimate  that  there  is  that  in 
their  own  demeanour  which  makes  rude 
ness  to  them  an  impossibility. 

More  candid  souls  find  it  hard  to  ac- 

12 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

count  for  the  crudity  of  our  intercourse, 
not  with  officials  only,  but  with  the  vast 
world  which  lies  outside  our  narrow  circle 
of  associates.  We  have  no  human  rela 
tions  where  we  have  no  social  relations  ; 
we  are  awkward  and  constrained  in  our 
recognition  of  the  unfamiliar;  and  this 
awkwardness  encumbers  us  in  the  ordin 
ary  routine  of  life.  A  policeman  who  has 
been  long  on  one  beat,  and  who  has 
learned  to  know  either  the  householders 
or  the  business  men  of  his  locality,  is 
wont  to  be  the  most  friendly  of  mortals. 
There  is  something  almost  pathetic  in 
the  value  he  places  upon  human  rela 
tionship,  even  of  a  very  casual  order.  A 
conductor  on  a  local  train  who  has  grown 
familiar  with  scores  of  passengers  is  no 
longer  a  ticket-punching,  station-shout 
ing  automaton.  He  bears  himself  in 
friendly  fashion  towards  all  travellers, 
because  he  has  established  with  some  of 
them  a  rational  foothold  of  communica 
tion.  But  the  official  who  sells  tickets  to 
13 


Americans  and  Others 

a  hurrying  crowd,  or  who  snaps  out  a 
few  tart  words  at  a  bureau  of  information, 
or  who  guards  a  gate  through  which  men 
and  women  are  pushing  with  senseless 
haste,  is  clad  in  an  armour  of  incivility. 
He  is  wantonly  rude  to  foreigners,  whose 
helplessness  should  make  some  appeal 
to  his  humanity.  I  have  seen  a  gate 
keeper  at  Jersey  City  take  by  the  shoul 
ders  a  poor  German,  whose  ticket  called 
for  another  train,  and  shove  him  roughly 
out  of  the  way,  without  a  word  of  ex 
planation.  The  man,  too  bewildered  for 
resentment,  rejoined  his  wife  to  whom  he 
had  said  good-bye,  and  the  two  anxious, 
puzzled  creatures  stood  whispering  to 
gether  as  the  throng  swept  callously 
past  them.  It  was  a  painful  spectacle,  a 
lapse  from  the  well-ordered  decencies 
of  civilization. 

For  to  be  civilized  is  to  be  incapable 
of  giving  unnecessary  offence,  it  is  to 
have  some  quality  of  consideration  for  all 
who  cross  our  path.  An  Englishwoman 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

once  said  to  Mr.  Whistler  that  the  polite 
ness  of  the  French  was  "  all  on  the  sur 
face,"  to  which  the  artist  made  reply : 
"  And  a  very  good  place  for  it  to  be."  It 
is  this  sweet  surface  politeness,  costing 
so  little,  counting  for  so  much,  which 
smooths  the  roughness  out  of  life.  "  The 
classic  quality  of  the  French  nation,"  says 
Mr.  Henry  James,  "  is  sociability ;  a  so 
ciability  which  operates  in  France,  as  it 
never  does  in  England,  from  below  up 
ward.  Your  waiter  utters  a  greeting  be 
cause,  after  all,  something  human  within 
him  prompts  him.  His  instinct  bids  him 
say  something,  and  his  taste  recom 
mends  that  it  should  be  agreeable." 

This  combination  of  instinct  and  taste 
—  which  happily  is  not  confined  to  the 
French,  nor  to  waiters  —  produces  some 
admirable  results,  results  out  of  all  pro 
portion  to  the  slightness  of  the  means 
employed.  It  often  takes  but  a  word,  a 
gesture,  to  indicate  the  delicate  process 
of  adjustment.  A  few  summers  ago  I  was 
15 


Americans  and  Others 

drinking  tea  with  friends  in  the  gardens 
of  the  Hotel  Faloria,  at  Cortina.  At  a 
table  near  us  sat  two  Englishmen,  three 
Englishwomen,  and  an  Austrian,  the  wife 
of  a  Viennese  councillor.  They  talked 
with  animation  and  in  engaging  accents. 
After  a  little  while  they  arose  and  strolled 
back  to  the  hotel.  The  Englishmen,  as 
they  passed  our  table,  stared  hard  at  two 
young  girls  who  were  of  our  party,  stared 
as  deliberately  and  with  as  much  freedom 
as  if  the  children  had  been  on  a  London 
music-hall  stage.  The  Englishwomen 
passed  us  as  though  we  had  been  invis 
ible.  They  had  so  completely  the  air  of 
seeing  nothing  in  our  chairs  that  I  felt 
myself  a  phantom,  a  ghost  like  Banquo's, 
with  no  guilty  eye  to  discern  my  pre 
sence  at  the  table.  Lastly  came  the  Aus 
trian,  who  had  paused  to  speak  to  a 
servant,  and,  as  she  passed,  she  gave  us 
a  fleeting  smile  and  a  slight  bow,  the 
mere  shadow  of  a  curtsey,  acknowledg 
ing  our  presence  as  human  beings,  to 
16 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

whom  some  measure  of  recognition  was 
due. 

It  was  such  a  little  thing,  so  lightly 
done,  so  eloquent  of  perfect  self-posses 
sion,  and  the  impression  it  made  upon  six 
admiring  Americans  was  a  permanent 
one.  We  fell  to  asking  ourselves  —  being 
honestly  conscious  of  constraint  —  how 
each  one  of  us  would  have  behaved  in  the 
Austrian  lady's  place,  whether  or  not  that 
act  of  simple  and  sincere  politeness  would 
have  been  just  as  easy  for  us.  Then  I 
called  to  mind  one  summer  morning  in 
New  England,  when  I  sat  on  a  friend's 
piazza,  waiting  idly  for  the  arrival  of  the 
Sunday  papers.  A  decent-looking  man, 
with  a  pretty  and  over-dressed  girl  by 
his  side,  drove  up  the  avenue,  tossed  the 
packet  of  papers  at  our  feet,  and  drove 
away  again.  He  had  not  said  even  a  bare 
"  Good  morning."  My  kind  and  court 
eous  host  had  offered  no  word  of  greet 
ing.  The  girl  had  turned  her  head  to 
stare  at  me,  but  had  not  spoken.  Struck 
17 


Americans  and  Others 

by  the  ungraciousness  of  the  whole  epi 
sode,  I  asked,  "  Is  he  a  stranger  in  these 
parts?" 

"No,"  said  my  friend.  "  He  has 
brought  the  Sunday  papers  all  summer. 
That  is  his  daughter  with  him." 

All  summer,  and  no  human  relations, 
not  enough  to  prompt  a  friendly  word, 
had  been  established  between  the  man 
who  served  and  the  man  who  was  served. 
None  of  the  obvious  criticisms  passed 
upon  American  manners  can  explain  the 
crudity  of  such  a  situation.  It  was  cer 
tainly  not  a  case  of  arrogance  towards  a 
hapless  brother  of  toil.  My  friend  prob 
ably  toiled  much  harder  than  the  paper- 
man,  and  was  the  least  arrogant  of  mor 
tals.  Indeed,  all  arrogance  of  bearing  lay 
conspicuously  on  the  paperman's  part. 
Why,  after  all,  should  not  his  instinct,  like 
the  instinct  of  the  French  waiter,  have 
bidden  him  say  something ;  why  should 
not  his  taste  have  recommended  that 
the  something  be  agreeable  ?  And  then, 
18 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

again,  why  should  not  my  friend,  in 
whom  social  constraint  was  unpardon 
able,  have  placed  his  finer  instincts  at  the 
service  of  a  fellow  creature  ?  We  must 
probe  to  the  depths  of  our  civilization 
before  we  can  understand  and  deplore 
the  limitations  which  make  it  difficult  for 
us  to  approach  one  another  with  mental 
ease  and  security.  We  have  yet  to  learn 
that  the  amenities  of  life  stand  for  its. 
responsibilities,  and  translate  them  into' 
action.  They  express  externally  the  fund 
amental  relations  which  ought  to  exist 
between  men.  "  All  the  distinctions,  so 
delicate  and  sometimes  so  complicated, 
which  belong  to  good  breeding,"  says 
M.  Rondalet  in  "  La  Reforme  Sociale," 
"answer  to  a  profound  unconscious 
analysis  of  the  duties  we  owe  to  one 
another." 

There  are  people  who  balk  at  small 

civilities  on  account  of   their   manifest 

insincerity.  They  cannot  be  brought  to 

believe  that  the   expressions  of  unfelt 

19 


Americans  and  Others 

pleasure  or  regret  with  which  we  accept 
or  decline  invitations,  the  little  affection 
ate  phrases  which  begin  and  end  our  let 
ters,  the  agreeable  formalities  which  have 
accumulated  around  the  simplest  actions 
of  life,  are  beneficent  influences  upon 
character,  promoting  gentleness  of  spirit. 
The  Quakers,  as  we  know,  made  a  mighty 
stand  against  verbal  insincerities,  with 
one  striking  exception,  —  the  use  of  the 
word  "  Friend."  They  said  and  believed 
that  this  word  represented  their  attitude 
towards  humanity,  their  spirit  of  uni 
versal  tolerance  and  brotherhood.  But  if 
to  call  oneself  a  "Friend"  is  to  empha 
size  one's  amicable  relations  towards 
one's  neighbour,  to  call  one's  neighbour 
"  Friend  "  is  to  imply  that  he  returns  this 
affectionate  regard,  which  is  often  an 
unwarranted  assumption.  It  is  better  and 
more  logical  to  accept  all  the  polite 
phraseology  which  facilitates  intercourse, 
and  contributes  to  the  sweetness  of  life. 
If  we  discarded  the  formal  falsehoods 
20 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

'  which  are  the  currency  of  conversation, 
I  we  should  not  be  one  step  nearer  the 
'  vital  things  of  truth. 

For  to  be  sincere  with  ourselves  is  bet 
ter  and  harder  than  to  be  painstakingly 
accurate  with  others.  A  man  may  be 
cruelly  candid  to  his  associates,  and  a 
cowardly  hypocrite  to  himself.  He  may 
handle  his  friend  harshly,  and  himself 
with  velvet  gloves.  He  may  never  tell 
the  fragment  of  a  lie,  and  never  think 
the  whole  truth.  He  may  wound  the 
pride  and  hurt  the  feelings  of  all  with 
whom  he  conies  in  contact,  and  never 
give  his  own  soul  the  benefit  of  one  good 
knockdown  blow.  The  connection  which 
'has  been  established  between  rudeness 
and  probity  on  the  one  hand,  and  polite 
ness  and  insincerity  on  the  other,  is  based 
upon  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  human 
nature. 

"  So  rugged  was  he  that  we  thought  him  just, 
So  churlish  was  he  that  we  deemed  him  true." 

"  It  is  better  to  hold  back  a  truth,"  said 

21 


Americans  and  Others 

Saint  Francis  de  Sales,  "  than  to  speak 
it  ungraciously." 

There  are  times  doubtless  when  can 
dour  goes  straight  to  its  goal,  and  court 
esy  misses  the  mark.  Mr.  John  Stuart 
Mill  was  once  asked  upon  the  hustings 
whether  or  not  he  had  ever  said  that  the 
English  working-classes  were  mostly 
liars.  He  answered  shortly,  "  I  did  1  " 
and  the  unexpected  reply  was  greeted 
with  loud  applause.  Mr.  Mill  was  wont 
to  quote  this  incident  as  proof  of  the 
value  which  Englishmen  set  upon  plain 
speaking.  They  do  prize  it,  and  they 
prize  the  courage  which  defies  their 
bullying.  But  then  the  remark  was,  after 
all,  a  generalization.  We  can  bear  hear 
ing  disagreeable  truths  spoken  to  a  crowd 
or  to  a  congregation  —  causticity  has 
always  been  popular  in  preachers  —  be 
cause  there  are  other  heads  than  our  own 
upon  which  to  fit  the  cap. 

The  brutalities  of  candour,  the  pestil 
ent  wit  which  blights  whatever  it  touches, 

22 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

are  not  distinctively  American.  It  is  be 
cause  we  are  a  humorous  rather  than  a 
witty  people  that  we  laugh  for  the  most 
part  with,  and  not  at,  our  fellow  creatures. 
Indeed,  judged  by  the  unpleasant  things 
we  might  say  and  do  not  say,  we  should 
be  esteemed  polite.  English  memoirs 
teem  with  anecdotes  which  appear  to  us 
unpardonable.  Why  should  Lady  Hol 
land  have  been  permitted  to  wound  the 
susceptibilities  of  all  with  whom  she  came 
in  contact  ?  When  Moore  tells  us  that  she 
said  to  him,  "  This  book  of  yours  "  (the 
"  Life  of  Sheridan  ")  "  will  be  dull,  I  fear ; " 
and  to  Lord  Porchester,  "I  am  sorry 
to  hear  you  are  going  to  publish  a  poem. 
Can't  you  suppress  it  ?  "  we  do  not  find 
these  remarks  to  be  any  more  clever 
than  considerate.  They  belong  to  the 
category  of  the  monumentally  uncouth. 
Why  should  Mr.  Abraham  Hayward 
have  felt  it  his  duty  (he  put  it  that 
way)  to  tell  Mr.  Frederick  Locker  that 
the  "  London  Lyrics"  were  "  overrated"  ? 
23 


Americans  and  Others 

"  I  have  suspected  this,"  comments  the 
poet,  whose  least  noticeable  character 
istic  was  vanity ;  "  but  I  was  none  the 
less  sorry  to  hear  him  say  so."  Landor's 
reply  to  a  lady  who  accused  him  of  speak 
ing  of  her  with  unkindness,  "  Madame,  I 
have  wasted  my  life  in  defending  you  ! " 
was  pardonable  as  a  repartee.  It  was  the 
exasperated  utterance  of  self-defence ; 
and  there  is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn 
between  the  word  which  is  flung  without 
provocation,  and  the  word  which  is  the 
speaker's  last  resource.  When  "  Bobus  " 
Smith  told  Talleyrand  that  his  mother 
had  been  a  beautiful  woman,  and  Talley 
rand  replied,  "C'ktait  done  Monsieur 
votre  p£re  qui  rictait  pas  bien"  we  hold 
the  witticism  to  have  been  cruel  because 
unjustifiable.  A  man  should  be  privileged 
to  say  his  mother  was  beautiful,  without 
inviting  such  a  very  obvious  sarcasm. 
But  when  Madame  de  Stael  pestered 
Talleyrand  to  say  what  he  would  do  if  he 
saw  her  and  Madame  Recamier  drown- 
24 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

ing,  the  immortal  answer,  "Madame  de 
Stael  sail  tant  de  closes,  que  sans  doute 
elle  pent  nager"  seems  as  kind  as  the 
circumstances  warranted.  "Corinne's" 
vanity  was  of  the  hungry  type,  which, 
crying  perpetually  for  bread,  was  often 
fed  with  stones. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  differ 
ence  between  a  man's  habitual  rudeness 
and  habitual  politeness  is  probably  as 
great  a  difference  as  he  will  ever  be  able 
to  make  in  the  sum  of  human  happiness ; 
land  the  arithmetic  of  life  consists  in  add 
ing  to,  or  subtracting  from,  the  pleasur- 
''able  moments  of  mortality.  Neither  is  it 
worth  while  to  draw  fine  distinctions  be 
tween  pleasure  and  happiness.  If  we  are 
indifferent  to  the  pleasures  of  our  fellow 
creatures,  it  will  not  take  us  long  to  be 
indifferent  to  their  happiness.  We  do  not 
grow  generous  by  ceasing  to  be  consid 
erate. 

\   As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  perpetual  sur 
render   which   politeness   dictates   cuts 
25 


Americans  and  Others 

down  to  a  reasonable  figure  the  sum  to 
tal  of  our  selfishness.  To  listen  when  we 
are  bored,  to  talk  when  we  are  listless, 
to  stand  when  we  are  tired,  to  praise 
when  we  are  indifferent,  to  accept  the 
companionship  of  a  stupid  acquaintance 
when  we  might,  at  the  expense  of  polite 
ness,  escape  to  a  clever  friend,  to  endure 
with  smiling  composure  the  near  pre 
sence  of  people  who  are  distasteful  to  us, 
—  these  things,  and  many  like  them, 
brace  the  sinews  of  our  souls.  They  set 
a  fine  and  delicate  standard  for  common 
intercourse.  They  discipline  us  for  the 
good  of  the  community. 

We  cannot  ring  the  bells  backward, 
blot  out  the  Civil  War,  and  exchange 
the  speed  of  modern  life  for  the  slumber 
ous  dignity  of  the  Golden  Age,  —  an 
age  whose  gilding  brightens  as  we  leave 
it  shimmering  in  the  distance.  But  even 
under  conditions  which  have  the  disad 
vantage  of  existing,  the  American  is  not 
without  gentleness  of  speech  and  spirit. 
26 


A  Question  of  Politeness 

He  is  not  always  in  a  hurry.  He  is  not 
always  elbowing  his  way,  or  quivering 
with  ill-bred  impatience.  Turn  to  him  for 
help  in  a  crowd,  and  feel  the  bright  sure- 
ness  of  his  response.  Watch  him  under 
ordinary  conditions,  and  observe  his 
large  measure  of  forbearance  with  the 
social  deficiencies  of  his  neighbour.  Like 
Steele,  he  deems  it  humanity  to  laugh  at 
an  indifferent  jest,  and  he  has  thereby 
earned  for  himself  the  reputation  of 
being  readily  diverted.  If  he  lacks  the 
urbanities  which  embellish  conversation, 
he  is  correspondingly  free  from  the  bru 
talities  which  degrade  it.  If  his  instinct 
does  not  prompt  him  to  say  something 
agreeable,  it  saves  him  from  being  wan 
tonly  unkind.  Plain  truths  may  be  salu 
tary  ;  but  unworthy  truths  are  those 
which  are  destitute  of  any  spiritual  qual 
ity,  which  are  not  noble  in  themselves, 
and  which  are  not  nobly  spoken ;  which 
may  be  trusted  to  offend,  and  which  have 
never  been  known  to  illuminate.  It  is 
27 


Americans  and  Others 

not  for  such  asperities  that  we  have  per 
fected  through  the  ages  the  priceless  gift 
of  language,  that  we  seek  to  meet  one 
another  in  the  pleasant  comradeship  of 
life. 


^U^V^wX- 

v 


^, 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

44  Laughter  is  my  object :  'tis  a  property 

In  man,  essential  to  his  reason." 
THOMAS  RANDOLPH,  The  Muses'  Looking- Glass. 

AIERICAN  humour  is  the  pride  of 
American  hearts.  It  is  held  to 
be  our  splendid  national  char 
acteristic,  which  we  flaunt  in  the  faces 
of  other  nations,  conceiving  them  to  have 
been  less  favoured  by  Providence.  Just  as 
the  most  effective  way  to  disparage  an 
author  or  an  acquaintance  —  and  we  have 
often  occasion  to  disparage  both  —  is 
to  say  that  he  lacks  a  sense  of  humour, 
so  the  most  effective  criticism  we  can 
pass  upon  a  nation  is  to  deny  it  this  valu 
able  quality.  American  critics  have  writ 
ten  the  most  charming  things  about  the 
keenness  of  American  speech,  the  breadth 
and  insight  of  American  drollery,  the 
electric  current  in  American  veins ;  and 
29 


Americans  and  Others 

we,  reading  these  pleasant  felicitations, 
are  wont  to  thank  God  with  greater  fer 
vour  than  the  occasion  demands  that 
we  are  more  merry  and  wise  than  our 
neighbours.  Mr.  Brander  Matthews,  for 
example,  has  told  us  that  there  are  news 
paper  writers  in  New  York  who  have 
cultivated  a  wit,  "not  unlike  Voltaire's." 
He  mistrusts  this  wit  because  he  finds  it 
"  corroding  and  disintegrating  "  ;  but  he 
makes  the  comparison  with  that  casual 
assurance  which  is  a  feature  of  American 
criticism. 

Indeed,  our  delight  in  our  own  humour 
has  tempted  us  to  overrate  both  its  lit 
erary  value  and  its  corrective  qualities. 
We  are  never  so  apt  to  lose  our  sense  of 
proportion  as  when  we  consider  those 
beloved  writers  whom  we  hold  to  be 
humourists  because  they  have  made  us 
laugh.  It  may  be  conceded  that,  as  a 
people,  we  have  an  abiding  and  some 
what  disquieting  sense  of  fun.  We  are 
nimble  of  speech,  we  are  more  prone  to 
30 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

levity  than  to  seriousness,  we  are  able 
to  recognize  a  vital  truth  when  it  is  pre 
sented  to  us  under  the  familiar  aspect  of 
a  jest,  and  we  habitually  allow  ourselves 
certain  forms  of  exaggeration,  accepting, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  Hazlitt's  verdict : 
"  Lying  is  a  species  of  wit,  and  shows 
spirit  and  invention."  It  is  true  also  that 
no  adequate  provision  is  made  in  this 
country  for  the  defective  but  valuable 
class  without  humour,  which  in  England 
is  exceedingly  well  cared  for.  American 
letters,  American  journalism,  and  Ameri 
can  speech  are  so  coloured  by  pleasant 
ries,  so  accentuated  by  ridicule,  that  the 
silent  and  stodgy  men,  who  are  apt  to 
represent  a  nation's  real  strength,  hardly 
know  where  to  turn  for  a  little  saving  dul- 
ness.  A  deep  vein  of  irony  runs  through 
every  grade  of  society,  making  it  possible 
for  us  to  laugh  at  our  own  bitter  discomfit 
ure,  and  to  scoff  with  startling  distinct 
ness  at  the  evils  which  we  passively  per 
mit.  Just  as  the  French  monarchy  under 


Americans  and  Others 

Louis  the  Fourteenth  was  wittily  defined 
as  despotism  tempered  by  epigram,  so 
the  United  States  have  been  described 
as  a  free  republic  fettered  by  jokes,  and 
the  taunt  conveys  a  half-truth  which  it 
is  worth  our  while  to  consider. 

Now  there  are  many  who  affirm  that  the 
humourist's  point  of  view  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  fairest  from  which  the  world  can  be 
judged.  It  is  equally  remote  from  the 
misleading  side-lights  of  the  pessimist 
and  from  the  wilful  blindness  of  the  opti 
mist.  It  sees  things  with  uncompromis 
ing  clearness,  but  it  judges  of  them  with 
tolerance  and  good  temper.  Moreover, 
a  sense  of  the  ridiculous  is  a  sound  pre 
servative  of  social  virtues.  It  places  a 
proper  emphasis  on  the  judgments  of  our 
associates,  it  saves  us  from  pitfalls  of 
vanity  and  self-assurance,  it  lays  the  basis 
of  that  propriety  and  decorum  of  conduct 
upon  which  is  founded  the  charm  of  in 
tercourse  among  equals.  And  what  it 
does  for  us  individually,  it  does  for  us 
32 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

collectively.  Our  national  apprehension 
of  a  jest  fosters  whatever  grace  of  mod 
esty  we  have  to  show.  We  dare  not  in 
flate  ourselves  as  superbly  as  we  should 
like  to  do,  because  our  genial  countrymen 
stand  ever  ready  to  prick  us  into  sudden 
collapse.  "It  is  the  laugh  we  enjoy  at 
our  own  expense  which  betrays  us  to  the 
rest  of  the  world." 

Perhaps  we  laugh  too  readily.  Per 
haps  we  are  sometimes  amused  when  we 
ought  to  be  angry.  Perhaps  we  jest  when 
it  is  our  plain  duty  to  reform.  Here  lies 
the  danger  of  our  national  light-minded 
ness,  —  for  it  is  seldom  light-heartedness ; 
we  are  no  whit  more  light-hearted  than 
our  neighbours.  A  carping  English  critic 
has  declared  that  American  humour  con 
sists  in  speaking  of  hideous  things  with 
levity ;  and  while  so  harsh  a  charge  is 
necessarily  unjust,  it  makes  clear  one 
abiding  difference  between  the  nations. 
An  Englishman  never  laughs  —  except 
officially  in  "Punch"  —  over  any  form 
33 


Americans  and  Others 

of  political  degradation.  He  is  not  in  the 
least  amused  by  jobbery,  by  bad  service, 
by  broken  pledges.  The  seamy  side  of 
civilized  life  is  not  to  him  a  subject  for 
sympathetic  mirth.  He  can  pity  the  stu 
pidity  which  does  not  perceive  that  it  is 
cheated  and  betrayed;  but  penetration 
allied  to  indifference  awakens  his  won 
dering  contempt.  "  If  you  think  it  amus 
ing  to  be  imposed  on,"  an  Englishwoman 
once  said  to  me,  "  you  need  never  be  at  a 
loss  for  a  joke." 

In  good  truth,  we  know  what  a  man 
is  like  by  the  things  he  finds  laughable,  we 
gauge  both  his  understanding  and  his 
culture  by  his  sense  of  the  becoming  and 
of  the  absurd.  If  the  capacity  for  laughter 
be  one  of  the  things  which  separates  men 
from  brutes,  the  quality  of  laughter  draws 
a  sharp  dividing-line  between  the  trained 
intelligence  and  the  vacant  mind.  The 
humour  of  a  race  interprets  the  char 
acter  of  a  race,  and  the  mental  condi 
tion  of  which  laughter  is  the  expression 
34 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

is  something"  which  it  behooves  the  stu 
dent  of  human  nature  and  the  student  of 
national  traits  to  understand  very  clearly. 

INow  our  American  humour  is,  on  the 
whole,  good-tempered  and  decent.  It  is 
scandalously  irreverent  (reverence  is  a 
quality  which  seems  to  have  been  left  out 
of  our  composition);  but  it  has  neither 
the  pitilessness  of  the  Latin,  nor  the  gross- 
ness  of  the  Teuton  jest.  As  Mr.  Gilbert 
said  of  Sir  Beerbohm  Tree's  "  Hamlet,"  it 
is  funny  without  being  coarse.  We  have 
at  our  best  the  art  of  being  amusing  in 
an  agreeable,  almost  an  amiable,  fashion ; 
but  then  we  have  also  the  rare  good  for 
tune  to  be  very  easily  amused.  Think  of 
the  current  jokes  provided  for  our  enter 
tainment  week  by  week,  and  day  by  day. 
Think  of  the  comic  supplement  of  our 
Sunday  newspapers,  designed  for  the 
refreshment  of  the  feeble-minded,  and 
calculated  to  blight  the  spirits  of  any 
ordinarily  intelligent  household.  Think 
of  the  debilitated  jests  and  stories  which 
35 


Americans  and  Others 

a  time-honoured  custom  inserts  at  the 
back  of  some  of  our  magazines.  It  seems 

•  to  be  the  custom  of  happy  American 
parents  to  report  to  editors  the  infantile 
prattle  of  their  engaging  little  children, 
and  the  editors  print  it  for  the  benefit 
of  those  who  escape  the  infliction  first 
hand.  There  is  a  story,  pleasant  but  pite 
ous,  of  Voltaire's  listening  with  what  pa 
tience  he  could  muster  to  a  comedy  which 
was  being  interpreted  by  its  author.  At 
a  certain  point  the  dramatist  read,  "At 
this  the  Chevalier  laughed"  ;  whereupon 
Voltaire  murmured  enviously,  "  How  for 
tunate  the  Chevalier  was!"  I  think  of 
that  story  whenever  I  am  struck  afresh 
by  the  ease  with  which  we  are  moved  to 
mirth. 

A  painstaking  German  student,  who  has 
traced  the  history  of  humour  back  to  its 
earliest  foundations,  is  of  the  opinion 
that  there  are  eleven  original  jokes  known 
to  the  world,  or  rather  that  there  are- 

j  eleven  original  and  basic  situations  which 
36 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

have  given  birth  to  the  world's  jokes; 
and  that  all  the  pleasantries  with  which 
we  are  daily  entertained  are  variations  of 
these  eleven  originals,  traceable  directly 
or  indirectly  to  the  same  sources.  There 
are  times  when  we  are  disposed  to  think 
eleven  too  generous  a  computation,  and 
there  are  less  weary  moments  in  which 
the  inexhaustible  supply  of  situations 
still  suggests  fresh  possibilities  of  laugh- 
terj  Granted  that  the  ever  fertile  mother- 
in-law  jest  and  the  one  about  the  talkative 
barber  were  venerable  in  the  days  of 
Plutarch ;  there  are  others  more  securely 
and  more  deservedly  rooted  in  public 
esteem  which  are,  by  comparison,  new. 
Christianity,  for  example,  must  be  held 
responsible  for  the  missionary  and  can 
nibal  joke,  of  which  we  have  grown  weary 
unto  death ;  but  which  nevertheless  pos 
sesses  astonishing  vitality,  and  exhibits 
remarkable  breadth  of  treatment.  Sydney 
Smith  did  not  disdain  to  honour  it  with 
a  joyous  and  unclerical  quatrain;  and 
37 


Americans  and  Others 

the  agreeable  author  of  "Rab  and  his 
Friends"  has  told  us  the  story  of  his  fra 
gile  little  schoolmate  whose  mother  had 
destined  him  for  a  missionary,  "though 
goodness  knows  there  wasn't  enough 

\   of    him    to    go    around    among    many 
heathen." 

To  Christianity  is  due  also  the  some 
what  ribald  mirth  which  has  clung  for 
centuries  about  Saint  Peter  as  gate- 

.  keeper  of  Heaven.  We  can  trace  this 
mirth  back  to  the  rude  jests  of  the  earli 
est  miracle  plays.  We  see  these  jests 
repeated  over  and  over  again  in  the 
folklore  of  Latin  and  Germanic  nations. 
And  if  we  open  a  comic  journal  to-day, 
there  is  more  than  a  chance  that  we  shall 
find  Saint  Peter,  key  in  hand,  uttering 
his  time-honoured  witticisms.  This  well- 
worn  situation  depends,  as  a  rule,  upon 
that  common  element  of  fun-making, 
the  incongruous.  Saint  Peter  invaded 
by  air-ships.  Saint  Peter  outwitting  a 
•  squad  of  banner-flying  suffragettes.  Saint 
38 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

Peter  losing  his  saintly  temper  over  the 
expansive  philanthropy  of  millionaires. 
Now  and  then  a  bit  of  true  satire,  like 
Mr.  Kipling's  "  Tomlinson,"  conveys  its 
deeper  lesson  to  humanity.  A  recently 
told  French  story  describes  a  lady  of  good 
reputation,  family,  and  estate,  presenting 
herself  fearlessly  at  the  gates  of  Heaven. 
Saint  Peter  receives  her  politely,  and 
leads  her  through  a  street  filled  with 
lofty  and  beautiful  mansions,  any  one  of 
which  she  thinks  will  satisfy  her  require 
ments  ;  but,  to  her  amazement,  they  pass 
them  by.  Next  they  come  to  more  modest 
but  still  charming  houses  with  which  she 
feels  she  could  be  reasonably  content; 
but  again  they  pass  them  by.  Finally 
they  reach  a  small  and  mean  dwelling  in 
a  small  and  mean  thoroughfare.  "  This," 
says  Saint  Peter,  "is  your  habitation." 
"This!"  cries  the  indignant  lady;  "I 
could  not  possibly  live  in  any  place  so 
shabby  and  inadequate."  "I  am  sorry, 
madame,"  replies  the  saint  urbanely ; 
39 


Americans  and  Others 

11  but  we  have  done  the  best  we  could 
with  the  materials  you  furnished  us." 

There  are  no  bounds  to  the  loyalty 
with  which  mankind  clings  to  a  well- 
established  jest,  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
number  of  times  a  tale  will  bear  retell 
ing.  Occasionally  we  give  it  a  fresh  set 
ting,  adorn  it  with  fresh  accessories,  and 
present  it  as  new-born  to  the  world ; 
but  this  is  only  another  indication  of  our 
affectionate  tenacity.  I  have  heard  that 
caustic  gibe  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  anent 
the  bishop's  lady  and  the  bishop's  wife 
(the  Tudors  had  a  biting  wit  of  their  own) 
retold  at  the  expense  of  an  excellent 
lady,  the  wife  of  a  living  American 
bishop ;  and  the  story  of  the  girl  who, 
professing  religion,  gave  her  ear-rings 
to  a  sister,  because  she  knew  they  were 
taking  her  to  Hell, —  a  story  which  dates 
from  the  early  Wesleyan  revivals  in 
England,  —  I  have  heard  located  in 
Philadelphia,  and  assigned  to  one  of  Mr. 
Torrey's  evangelistic  services.  We  still 
40 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

resort,  as  in  the  days  of  Sheridan,  to  our! 
memories  for  our  jokes,  and  to  our  imag-J 
inations  for  our  facts. 

Moreover,  we  Americans  have  jests 
of  our  own,  —  poor  things  for  the  most 
part,  but  our  own.  They  are  current 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  they  ap 
pear  with  commendable  regularity  in  our 
newspapers  and  comic  journals,  and  they 
have  become  endeared  to  us  by  a  lifetime 
of  intimacy.  The  salient  characteristics 
of  our  great  cities,  the  accepted  tradi 
tions  of  our  mining-camps,  the  contrast 
between  East  and  West,  the  still  more 
familiar  contrast  between  the  torpor  of 
Philadelphia  and  Brooklyn  ("In  the 
midst  of  life,"  says  Mr.  Oliver  Herford, 
"we  are  —  in  Brooklyn")  and  the  un 
easy  speed  of  New  York,  —  these  things 
furnish  abundant  material  for  everyday 
American  humour.  There  is,  for  exam 
ple,  the  encounter  between  the  Boston 
girl  and  the  Chicago  girl,  who,  in  real 
life,  might  often  be  taken  for  each  other ; 


Americans  and  Others 

but  who,  in  the  American  joke,  are  as 
sharply  differentiated  as  the  Esquimo 
and  the  Hottentot.  And  there  is  the  lit 
tle  Boston  boy  who  always  wears  spec 
tacles,  who  is  always  named  Waldo, 
and  who  makes  some  innocent  remark 
about  "Literary  Ethics,"  or  the  "Con 
duct  of  Life."  We  have  known  this  little 
boy  too  long  to  bear  a  parting  from  him. 
Indeed,  the  mere  suggestion  that  all  Bos- 
tonians  are  forever  immersed  in  Emer 
son  is  one  which  gives  unfailing  delight 
to  the  receptive  American  mind.  It  is  a 
podr  community  which  cannot  furnish 
its  archaic  jest  for  the  diversion  of  its 
neighbours. 

The  finest  example  of  our  bulldog 
resoluteness  in  holding  on  to  a  comic 
situation,  or  what  we  conceive  to  be  a 
comic  situation,  may  be  seen  every  year 
when  the  twenty-second  of  February 
draws  near,  and  the  shops  of  our  great 
and  grateful  Republic  break  out  into  an 
irruption  of  little  hatchets,  by  which 
42 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

curious  insignia  we  have  chosen  to 
commemorate  our  first  President.  These 
toys,  occasionally  combined  with  sprigs 
of  artificial  cherries,  are  hailed  with  un 
flagging  delight,  and  purchased  with 
what  appears  to  be  patriotic  fervour.  I 
have  seen  letter-carriers  and  post-office 
clerks  wearing  little  hatchets  in  their 
button-holes,  as  though  they  were  party 
buttons,  or  temperance  badges.  It  is  our 
great  national  joke,  which  I  presume 
gains  point  from  the  dignified  and  reti 
cent  character  of  General  Washington, 
and  from  the  fact  that  he  would  have 
been  sincerely  unhappy  could  he  have 
foreseen  the  senile  character  of  a  jest, 
destined,  through  our  love  of  absurdity, 
our  careful  cultivation  of  the  inappro 
priate,  to  be  linked  forever  with  his 
name. 

I  The  easy  exaggeration  which  is  a  dis- 
[  tincti ve  feature  of  American  humour,  and 
about  which  so  much  has  been  said 
and  written,  has  its  counterpart  in  sober 
43 


Americans  and  Others 

and  truth-telling  England,  though  we  are 
always  amazed  when  we  find  it  there,  and 
fall  to  wondering,  as  we  never  wonder 
at  home,  in  what  spirit  it  was  received. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  exaggeration; 
exaggeration  of  statement,  which  is  a 
somewhat  primitive  form  of  humour,  and 
exaggeration  of  phrase,  which  implies  a 
dexterous  misuse  of  language,  a  skilful 
juggling  with  words.  Sir  John  Robinson 
gives,  as  an  admirable  instance  of  exag' 
geration  of  statement,  the  remark  of  an 
American  in  London  that  his  dining- 
room  ceiling  was  so  low  that  he  could 
not  have  anything  for  dinner  but  soles. 
Sir  John  thought  this  could  have  been 
said  only  by  an  American,  only  by  one 
accustomed  to  have  a  joke  swiftly  cata 
logued  as  a  joke,  and  suffered  to  pass. 
An  English  jester  must  always  take  into 
account  the  mental  attitude  which  finds 
11  Gulliver's  Travels"  "  incredible."  When 
Mr.  Edward  FitzGerald  said  that  the 
church  at  Woodbridge  was  so  damp  that 
44 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

fungi  grew  about  the  communion  rail, 
Woodbridge  ladies  offered  an  indignant 
denial.  When  Dr.  Thompson,  the  witty 
master  of  Trinity,  observed  of  an  under 
graduate  that  "all  the  time  he  could 
spare  from  the  neglect  of  his  duties  he 
gave  to  the  adornment  of  his  person," 
the  sarcasm  made  its  slow  way  into 
print;  whereupon  an  intelligent  British 
reader  wrote  to  the  periodical  which  had 
printed  it,  and  explained  painstakingly 
that,  inasmuch  as  it  was  not  possible  to 
spare  time  from  the  neglect  of  anything, 
the  criticism  was  inaccurate. 

Exaggeration  of  phrase,  as  well  as  the  I 
studied  understatement  which  is  an  even  | 
more  effective  form  of  ridicule,  seem  natu 
ral  products  of  American  humour.  They 
sound,  wherever  we  hear  them,  familiar 
to  our  ears.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  an 
English  barrister,  and  not  a  Texas  ranch 
man,  described  Boston  as  a  town  where 
respectability  stalked  unchecked.  Maza- 
rin's  plaintive  reflection,  "  Nothing  is  so 
45 


Americans  and  Others 

«  disagreeable  as  to  be  obscurely  hanged," 
carries  with  it  an  echo  of  Wyoming  or 
Arizona.  Mr.  Gilbert's  analysis  of  Ham 
let's  mental  disorder,  - 

"  Hamlet  is  idiotically  sane, 
With  lucid  intervals  of  lunacy,"  — 

has  the  pure  flavour  of  American  wit,  — 
a  wit  which  finds  its  most  audacious 
expression  in  burlesquing  bitter  things, 
and  which  misfits  its  words  with  diabolic 
ingenuity.  To  match  these  alien  jests, 
which  sound  so  like  our  own,  we  have 
the  whispered  warning  of  an  American 
usher  (also  quoted  by  Sir  John  Robinson) 
who  opened  the  door  to  a  late  comer  at 
one  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  lectures : 
"Will  you  please  make  as  little  noise  as 
you  can,  sir.  The  audience  is  asleep  "  ; 
and  the  comprehensive  remark  of  a  New 
England  scholar  and  wit  that  he  never 
wanted  to  do  anything  in  his  life,  that  he 
did  not  find  it  was  expensive,  unwhole 
some,  or  immoral.  This  last  observation 
embraces  the  wisdom  of  the  centuries. 
46 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

Solomon  would  have  endorsed  it,  and  it 
is  supremely  quotable  as  expressing  a 
common  experience  with  very  uncom 
mon  felicity. 

When  we  leave  the  open  field  of  ex 
aggeration,  that  broad  area  which  is  our 
chosen  territory,  and  seek  for  subtler 
qualities  in  American  humour,  we  find 
here  and  there  a  witticism  which,  while 
admittedly  our  own,  has  in  it  an  Old- 
World  quality.  The  epigrammatic  re 
mark  of  a  Boston  woman  that  men  g-et 
and  forget,  and  women  give  and  forgive, 
shows  the  fine,  sharp  finish  of  Sydney 
Smith  or  Sheridan.  A  Philadelphia  wo 
man's  observation,  that  she  knew  there 
could  be  no  marriages  in  Heaven,  be 
cause  —  "  Well,  women  were  there  no 
doubt  in  plenty,  and  some  men  ;  but  not 
a  man  whom  any  woman  would  have," 
is  strikingly  French.  The  word  of  a  New 
York  broker,  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  sailed 
x  for  Africa,  "Wall  Street  expects  every 
lion  to  do  its  duty ! "  equals  in  brevity 
47 


Americans  and  Others 

and  malice  the  keen-edged  satire  of  Italy. 
No  sharper  thrust  was  ever  made  at 
prince  or  potentate. 

v  The  truth  is  that  our  love  of  a  jest 
j  knows  no  limit  and  respects  no  law. 
The  incongruities  of  an  unequal  civili 
zation  (we  live  in  the  land  of  contrasts) 
have  accustomed  us  to  absurdities,  and 
reconciled  us  to  ridicule.  We  rather  like 
being  satirized  by  our  own  countrymen. 
We  are  very  kind  and  a  little  cruel  to 
our  humourists.  We  crown  them  with 
praise,  we  hold  them  to  our  hearts,  we 
pay  them  any  price  they  ask  for  their 
wares ;  but  we  insist  upon  their  being 
funny  all  the  time.  Once  a  humourist, 
always  a  humourist,  is  our  way  of  think 
ing  ;  and  we  resent  even  a  saving  lapse 
into  seriousness  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  had  the  good  or  the  ill  fortune  to 
make  us  laugh. 

England  is  equally  obdurate  in  this 
regard.  Her  love  of  laughter  has  been 
consecrated  by  Oxford,  —  Oxford,  the 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

dignified  refuge  of  English  scholarship, 
which  passed  by  a  score  of  American 
scholars  to  bestow  her  honours  on  our 
great  American  joker.  And  because  of 
this  love  of  laughter,  so  desperate  in 
a  serious  nation,  English  jesters  have 
enjoyed  the  uneasy  privileges  of  a 
court  fool.  Look  at  poor  Hood.  What 
he  really  loved  was  to  wallow  in  the  pa 
thetic,  —  to  write  such  harrowing  verses 
as  the  "  Bridge  of  Sighs,"  and  the  "  Song 
of  the  Shirt"  (which  achieved  the  rare 
distinction  of  being  printed  —  like  the 
"  Beggar's  Petition  "  —  on  cotton  hand 
kerchiefs),  and  the  "  Lady's  Dream." 
Every  time  he  broke  from  his  traces,  he 
plunged  into  these  morasses  of  melan 
choly;  but  he  was  always  pulled  out 
again,  and  reharnessed  to  his  jokes.  He 
would  have  liked  to  be  funny  occasion 
ally  and  spontaneously,  and  it  was  the 
will  of  his  master,  the  public,  that  he 
should  be  funny  all  the  time,  or  starve. 
Lord  Chesterfield  wisely  said  that  a  man 
49 


Americans  and  Others 

should  live  within  his  wit  as  well  as  within 
his  income  ;  but  if  Hood  had  lived  within 
his  wit  —  which  might  then  have  pos 
sessed  a  vital  and  lasting  quality  —  he 
would  have  had  no  income.  His  role  in 
life  was  like  that  of  a  dancing  bear,  which 
is  held  to  commit  a  solecism  every  time 
it  settles  wearily  down  on  the  four  legs 
nature  gave  it. 

;  The  same  tyrannous  demand  hounded 
Mr.  Eugene  Field  along  his  joke-strewn 
path.  Chicago,  struggling  with  vast  and 
difficult  problems,  felt  the  need  of  laugh 
ter,  and  required  of  Mr.  Field  that  he 
should  make  her  laugh.  He  accepted 
the  responsibility,  and,  as  a  reward,  his 
memory  is  hallowed  in  the  city  he  loved 
and  derided.  New  York  echoes  this  sen 
timent  (New  York  echoes  more  than  she 
proclaims  ;  she  confirms  rather  than  ini 
tiates);  and  when  Mr.  Francis  Wilson 
wrote  some  years  ago  a  charming  and 
enthusiastic  paper  for  the  "  Century  Mag 
azine,"  he  claimed  that  Mr.  Field  was  so 
50 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

great  a  humourist  as  to  be  —  what  all 
great  humourists  are, — a  moralist  as  well. 
But  he  had  little  to  quote  which  could 
be  received  as  evidence  in  a  court  of 
criticism;  and  many  of  the  paragraphs 
which  he  deemed  it  worth  while  to  re 
print  were  melancholy  instances  of  that 
jaded  wit,  that  exhausted  vitality,  which 
in  no  wise  represented  Mr.  Field's  mirth- 
loving  spirit,  but  only  the  things  which 
were  ground  out  of  him  when  he  was  not 
in  a  mirthful  mood. 

The  truth  is  that  humour  as  a  lucrative 
profession  is  a  purely  modern  device, 
and  one  which  is  much  to  be  deplored. 
The  older  humourists  knew  the  value  of 
light  and  shade.  Their  fun  was  precious 
in  proportion  to  its  parsimony.  The  es 
sence  of  humour  is  that  it  should  be  unex 
pected,  that  it  should  embody  an  element 
of  surprise,  that  it  should  startle  us  out 
of  that  reasonable  gravity  which,  after 
all,  must  be  our  habitual  frame  of  mind. 
But  the  professional  humourist  cannot 


Americans  and  Others 

afford  to  be  unexpected.  The  exigencies 
of  his  vocation  compel  him  to  be  relent 
lessly  droll  from  his  first  page  to  his  last, 
i  and  this  accumulated   drollery  weighs 
|  like  lead.  Compared  to  it,  sermons  are 
as  thistle-down,  and  political  economy 
*  is  gay. 

It  is  hard  to  estimate  the  value  of 
humour  as  a  national  trait.  Life  has  its 
appropriate  levities,  its  comedy  side.  We 
cannot  "see  it  clearly  and  see  it  whole," 
without  recognizing  a  great  many  ab 
surdities  which  ought  to  be  laughed  at, 
a  great  deal  of  nonsense  which  is  a  fair 
target  for  ridicule.  The  heaviest  charge 
brought  against  American  humour  is 
that  it  never  keeps  its  target  well  in  view. 
We  laugh,  but  we  are  not  purged  by 
laughter  of  our  follies ;  we  jest,  but  our 
jests  are  apt  to  have  a  kitten's  sportive 
irresponsibility.  The  lawyer  offers  a 
witticism  in  place  of  an  argument,  the 
diner-out  tells  an  amusing  story  in  lieu  of 
conversation.  Even  the  clergyman  does 
52 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

not  disdain  a  joke,  heedless  of  Dr.  John 
son's  warning  which  should  save  him 
from  that  pitfall.  Smartness  furnishes 
sufficient  excuse  for  the  impertinence  of 
children,  and  with  purposeless  satire  the 
daily  papers  deride  the  highest  digni 
taries  of  the  land. 

Yet  while  always  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  life  and  letters,  American  humour  is 
not  a  powerful  and  consistent  factor  either 
for  destruction  or  for  reform.  It  lacks,  for 
the  most  part,  a  logical  basis,  arid  the 
dignity  of  a  supreme  aim.  Moliere's  hu 
mour  amounted  to  a  philosophy  of  life. 
He  was  wont  to  say  that  it  was  a  difficult 
task  to  make  gentlefolk  laugh ;  but  he 
succeeded  in  making  them  laugh  at 
that  which  was  laughable  in  themselves. 
He  aimed  his  shafts  at  the  fallacies  and 
the  duplicities  which  his  countrymen 
ardently  cherished,  and  he  scorned  the 
cheaper  wit  which  contents  itself  with 
mocking  at  idols  already  discredited.  As 
a  result,  he  purged  society,  not  of  the 
53 


Americans  and  Others 

follies  that  consumed  it,  but  of  the  illu 
sion  that  these  follies  were  noble,  grace 
ful,  and  wise.  "  We  do  not  plough  or 

,  sow  for  fools,"  says  a  Russian  proverb, 
"  they  grow  of  themselves  "  ;  but  humour 
has  accomplished  a  mighty  work  if  it 
helps  us  to  see  that  a  fool  is  a  fool,  and 

*  not  a  prophet  in  the  market-place.  And 
if  the  man  in  the  market-place  chances 
to  be  a  prophet,  his  message  is  safe  from 
assault.  No  laughter  can  silence  him,  no 

;   ridicule  weaken  his  words. 

Carlyle's  grim  humour  wras  also  drilled 
into  efficacy.  He  used  it  in  orderly  fash 
ion  ;  he  gave  it  force  by  a  stern  principle 
of  repression.  He  had  (what  wise  man 
has  not  ?)  an  honest  respect  for  dulness, 
knowing  that  a  strong  and  free  people 
argues  best  —  as  Mr.  Bagehot  puts  it 
—  "  in  platoons."  He  had  some  meas 
ure  of  mercy  for  folly.  But  against  the 
whole  complicated  business  of  pretence, 
against  the  pious,  and  respectable,  and 
patriotic  hypocrisies  of  a  successful  civ- 
54 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

ilization,  he  hurled  his  taunts  with  such 
true  aim  that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
there  has  been  less  real  comfort  and 
safety  in  lying  ever  since. 

These  are  victories  worth  recording,! 
and  there  is  a  big  battlefield  for  Ameri-1 
can  humour  when  it  finds  itself  ready  for 
the  fray,  when  it  leaves  off  firing  squibs, 
and  settles  down  to  a  compelling  can-ji 
nonade,  when  it  aims  less  at  the  super-1  [ 
ficial  incongruities  of  life,  and  more  at( 
the  "deep-rooted  delusions  which  rob 
of  fair  fame.  It  has  done  its  best  worl 
in  the  field  of  political  satire,  where  the 
"  Biglow  Papers  "  hit  hard  in  their  day, 
where  Nast's  cartoons  helped  to  over 
throw  the  Tweed  dynasty,  and  where  the 
indolent  and  luminous  genius  of  Mr. 
Dooley  has  widened  our  mental  horizon. 
Mr.  Dooley  is  a  philosopher,  but  his  is  the 
philosophy  of  the  looker-on,  of  that  genu 
ine  unconcern  which  finds  Saint  George 
and  the  dragon  to  be  both  a  trifle  ridic 
ulous.  He  is  always  undisturbed,  always 
55 


Americans  and  Others 

illuminating,  and  not  infrequently  amus 
ing  ;  but  he  anticipates  the  smiling  in 
difference  with  which  those  who  come 
after  us  will  look  back  upon  our  enthu- 
;  siasms  and  absurdities.  Humour,  as  he 
1  sees  it,  is  that  thrice  blessed  quality  which 
enables  us  to  laugh,  when  otherwise  we 
'  should  be  in  danger  of  weeping.    "  We 
are  ridiculous  animals,"  observes  Horace 
Walpole  unsympathetically,  "and  if  an- 

*gels  have  any  fun  in  their  hearts,  how 
we  must  divert  them." 
« 

t  It  is  this  clear-sighted,  non-combative 
,  humour  which  Americans  love  and  prize, 
and  the  absence  of  which  they  reckon 
a  heavy  loss.  Nor  do  they  always  ask, 
"  a  loss  to  whom  ?  "  Charles  Lamb  said 
it  was  no  misfortune  for  a  man  to  have 
a  sulky  temper.  It  was  his  friends  who 
were  unfortunate.  And  so  with  the  man 
who  has  no  sense  of  humour.  He  gets 
along  very  well  without  it.  He  is  not 
aware  that  anything  is  lacking.  He  is 
not  mourning  his  lot.  What  loss  there  is, 
56 


The  Mission  of  Humour 

his  friends  and  neighbours  bear.  A  man 
destitute  of  humour  is  apt  to  be  a  for 
midable  person,  not  subject  to  sudden 
deviations  from  his  chosen  path,  and  in 
capable  of  frittering  away  his  elementary 
forces  by  pottering  over  both  sides  of  a 
question.  He  is  often  to  be  respected, 
sometimes  to  be  feared,  and  always  — 
if  possible  —  to  be  avoided.  His  are  the 
qualities  which  distance  enables  us  to 
recognize  and  value  at  their  worth.  He 
fills  his  place  in  the  scheme  of  creation ; 
but  it  is  for  us  to  see  that  his  place  is  not 
next  to  ours  at  table,  where  his  unre- 
sponsiveness  narrows  the  conversational 
area,  and  dulls  the  contagious  ardour 
of  speech.  He  may  add  to  the  wisdom  of  • 
the  ages,  but  he  lessens  the  gayety  • 
of  life. 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

•'  Can  surly  Virtue  hope  to  find  a  friend  ?"  —  DR. 
JOHNSON. 

SIR  LESLIE   STEPHEN   has   re 
corded  his  conviction  that  a  sense 
of   humour,    being  irreconcilable 
with  some  of  the  cardinal  virtues,  is  lack 
ing  in  most  good  men.  Father  Faber  as- 
9  serted,  on  the  contrary,  that  a  sense  of 
humour  is  a  great  help  in  the  religious 
life,  and  emphasized  this  somewhat  un 
usual  point  of   view  with  the  decisive 
statement:    "  Perhaps   nature  does   not 
contribute  a  greater  help  to  grace  than 
this." 

Here  are  conflicting  verdicts  to  be  well 
considered.  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  knew 
more  about  humour  than  did  Father 
Faber ;  Father  Faber  knew  more  about 
"  grace  "  than  did  Sir  Leslie  Stephen ;  and 
both  disputants  were  widely  acquainted 

58 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

with  their  fellow  men.  Sir  Leslie  Stephen 
had  a  pretty  wit  of  his  own,  but  it  may 
have  lacked  the  qualities  which  make 
for  holiness.  There  was  in  it  the  element 
of  denial.  He  seldom  entered  the  shrine 
where  we  worship  our  ideals  in  secret. 
He  stood  outside,  remarks  Mr.  Birrell 
cheerily,  "with  a  pail  of  cold  water." 
Father  Faber  also  possessed  a  vein  of 
irony  which  was  the  outcome  of  a  priestly 
experience  with  the  cherished  foibles  of 
the  world.  He  entered  unbidden  into  the 
shrine  where  we  worship  our  illusions  in 
secret,  and  chilled  us  with  unwelcome 
truths.  I  know  of  no  harder  experience 
than  this.  It  takes  time  and  trouble  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  the  things  we 
want  to  do  are  the  things  we  ought  to  do. 
We  balance  our  spiritual  accounts  with 
care.  We  insert  glib  phrases  about  duty 
into  all  our  reckonings.  There  is  nothing, 
or  next  to  nothing,  which  cannot,  if 
adroitly  catalogued,  be  considered  a 
duty ;  and  it  is  this  delicate  mental  ad- 
59 


Americans  and  Others 

justment  which  is  disturbed  by  Father 
Faber's  ridicule.  "  Self-deceit,"  he  caus 
tically  observes,  "seems  to  thrive  on 
prayer,  and  to  grow  fat  on  contempla 
tion." 

If  .a  sense  of  humour  forces  us  to  be 
candid  with  ourselves,  then  it  can  be  re 
conciled,  not  only  with  the  cardinal  vir 
tues  —  which  are  but  a  chilly  quartette 

—  but  with  the  flaming  charities  which 
have  consumed  the  souls  of  saints.  The 
true  humourist,  objects  Sir  Leslie  Ste 
phen,  sees  the  world  as  a  tragi-comedy, 
a  Vanity  Fair,  in  which  enthusiasm  is 
out  of  place.    But  if  the  true  humourist 
also  sees  himself  presiding,  in  the  sacred 
name  of  duty,  over  a  booth  in  Vanity 
Fair,  he  may  yet  reach  perfection.  What 
Father   Faber  opposed   so   strenuously 
were,  not  the  vanities  of  the  profane,  of 
the  openly  and  cheerfully  unregenerate  ; 
but  the  vanities  of  a  devout  and  fashion 
able  congregation,  making  especial  terms 

—  by  virtue  of  its  exalted  station  —  with 

60 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

Providence.  These  were  the  people  whom 
he  regarded  all  his  priestly  life  with 
whimsical  dismay.  "  Their  voluntary  so 
cial  arrangements,"  he  wrote  in  "  Spirit 
ual  Conferences,"  "are  the  tyranny  of 
circumstance,  claiming  our  tenderest 
pity,  and  to  be  managed  like  the  work 
of  a  Xavier,  or  a  Vincent  of  Paul,  which 
hardly  left  the  saints  time  to  pray.  Their 
sheer  worldliness  is  to  be  considered  as 
an  interior  trial,  with  all  manner  of  cloudy 
grand  things  to  be  said  about  it.  They 
must  avoid  uneasiness,  for  such  great 
graces  as  theirs  can  grow  only  in  calm 
ness  and  tranquillity." 

This  is  irony  rather  than  humour,  but 
it  implies  a  capacity  to  see  the  tragi 
comedy  of  the  world,  without  necessarily 
losing  the  power  of  enthusiasm.  It  also 
explains  why  Father  Faber  regarded  an 
honest  sense  of  the  ridiculous  as  a  help 
to  goodness.  The  man  or  woman  who  is 
impervious  to  the  absurd  cannot  well  be 
stripped  of  self-delusion.  For  him,  for 
61 


Americans  and  Others 

her,  there  is  no  shaft  which  wounds.  The 
admirable  advice  of  Thomas  a  Kempis 
to  keep  away  from  people  whom  we  de 
sire  to  please,  and  the  quiet  perfection  of 
his  warning  to  the  censorious,  "In  judg 
ing  others,  a  man  toileth  in  vain  ;  for  the 
most  part  he  is  mistaken,  and  he  easily 
sinneth ;  but  in  judging  and  scrutinizing 
himself,  he  always  laboureth  with  profit," 
can  make  their  just  appeal  only  to  the 
humorous  sense.  So,  too,  the  counsel  of 
Saint  Francis  de  Sales  to  the  nuns  who 
wanted  to  go  barefooted,  "  Keep  your 
s  shoes  and  change  your  brains  "  ;  the  cau- 
v  tious  query  of  Pope  Gregory  the  First, 
concerning  John  the  Faster,  "  Does  he 
v  abstain  even  from  the  truth?"  Cardinal 
Newman's  axiom,  "  It  is  never  worth 
while  to  call  whity-brown  white,  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  scandal  "  ;  and  Father 
Faber's  own  felicitous  comment  on  reli 
gious  "hedgers,"  "A  moderation  which 
consists  in  taking  immoderate  liberties 
with  God  is  hardly  what  the  Fathers  of 
62 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

the  Desert  meant  when  they  preached 
their  crusade  in  favour  of  discretion "  ; 
—  are  all  spoken  to  those  hardy  and 
humorous  souls  who  can  bear  to  be 
honest  with  themselves. 

The  ardent  reformer,  intolerant  of  the 
ordinary  processes  of  life,  the  ardent 
philanthropist,  intolerant  of  an  imperfect 
civilization,  the  ardent  zealot,  intolerant 
of  man's  unspiritual  nature,  are  seldom 
disposed  to  gayety.  A  noble  impatience 
of  spirit  inclines  them  to  anger  or  to 
sadness.  John  Wesley,  reformer,  philan 
thropist,  zealot,  and  surpassingly  great 
in  all  three  characters,  strangled  within 
his  own  breast  the  simple  desire  to  be 
gay.  He  was  a  young  man  when  he 
formed  the  resolution,  "to  labour  after 
continual  seriousness,  not  willingly  in 
dulging  myself  in  the  least  levity  of  be 
haviour,  or  in  laughter,  —  no,  not  for  a 
moment "  ;  and  for  more  than  fifty  years 
he  kept  —  probably  with  no  great  diffi 
culty —  this  stern  resolve.  The  mediaeval 
63 


Americans  and  Others 

saying,  that  laughter  has  sin  for  a  father 
and  folly  for  a  mother,  would  have  meant 
to  Wesley  more  than  a  figure  of  speech. 
Nothing  could  rob  him  of  a  dry  and  bit 
ter  humour  ("  They  won't  let  me  go  to 
Bedlam,"  he  wrote,  "  because  they  say  I 
make  the  inmates  mad,  nor  into  New 
gate,  because  I  make  them  wicked ") ; 
but  there  was  little  in  his  creed  or  in  the 
scenes  of  his  labours  to  promote  cheer 
fulness  of  spirit. 

This  disciplining  of  nature,  honest,  err 
ing  human  nature,  which  could,  if  per 
mitted,  make  out  a  fair  case  for  itself, 
is  not  an  essential  element  of  the  evan 
gelist's  code.  In  the  hands  of  men  less 
great  than  Wesley,  it  has  been  known  to 
nullify  the  work  of  a  lifetime.  The  Lin 
colnshire  farmer  who,  after  listening  to  a 
sermon  on  Hell,  said  to  his  wife,  "  Noa, 
Sally,  it  woant  do.  Noa  constitootion 
could  stand  it,"  expressed  in  his  own 
fashion  the  healthy  limit  of  endurance. 
Our  spiritual  constitutions  break  under 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

a  pitiless  strain.  When  we  read  in  the 
diary  of  Henry  Alline,  quoted  by  Dr. 
William  James  in  his  "  Varieties  of  Reli 
gious  Experience,"  "  On  Wednesday  the 
twelfth  I  preached  at  a  wedding,  and  had 
the  happiness  thereby  to  be  the  means 
of  excluding  carnal  mirth,"  we  are  not 
merely  sorry  for  the  wedding  guests,  but 
beset  by  doubts  as  to  their  moral  gain. 

Why  should  Henry  Martyn,  that  fer 
vent  young  missionary  who  gave  his  life 
for  his  cause  with  the  straight-forward 
simplicity  of  a  soldier,  have  regretted 
so  bitterly  an  occasional  lapse  into  good 
spirits  ?  He  was  inhumanly  serious,  and 
he  prayed  by  night  and  day  to  be  saved 
from  his  "  besetting  sin  "  of  levity.  He 
was  consumed  by  the  flame  of  relig 
ious  zeal,  and  he  bewailed  at  grievous 
length,  in  his  diary,  his  "light,  worldly 
spirit."  He  toiled  unrestingly,  taking 
no  heed  of  his  own  physical  weakness, 
and  he  asked  himself  (when  he  had 
a  minute  to  spare)  what  would  become 
65 


Americans  and  Others 

of  his  soul,  should  he  be  struck  dead  in 
a  "careless  mood."  We  have  Mr.  Bir- 
rell's  word  for  it  that  once,  in  an  old 
book  about  India,  he  came  across  an 
after-dinner  jest  of  Henry  Martyn's  ;  but 
the  idea  was  so  incongruous  that  the 
startled  essayist  was  disposed  to  doubt 
the  evidence  of  his  senses.  "  There  must 
have  been  a  mistake  somewhere." 

To  such  a  man  the  world  is  not,  and 
never  can  be,  a  tragi-comedy,  and  laugh 
ter  seems  forever  out  of  place.  When  a 
Madeira  negress,  a  good  Christian  after 
her  benighted  fashion,  asked  Martyn  if 
the  English  were  ever  baptized,  he  did 
not  think  the  innocent  question  funny, 
he  thought  it  horrible.  He  found  Saint 
Basil's  writings  unsatisfactory,  as  lack 
ing  "evangelical  truth";  and,  could  he 
have  heard  this  great  doctor  of  the 
Church  fling  back  a  witticism  in  the 
court  of  an  angry  magistrate,  he  would 
probably  have  felt  more  doubtful  than 
ever  concerning  the  status  of  the  early 
66 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

Fathers.  It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  the  let 
ters  of  Martyn,  with  their  aloofness  from 
the  cheerful  currents  of  earth,  to  the  let 
ters  of  Bishop  Heber,  who,  albeit  a  mis 
sionary  and  a  keen  one,  had  always  a 
laugh  for  the  absurdities  which  beset  his 
wandering  life.  He  could  even  tell  with 
relish  the  story  of  the  drunken  pedlar 
whom  he  met  in  Wales,  and  who  con 
fided  to  him  that,  having  sold  all  his 
wares,  he  was  trying  to  drink  up  the 
proceeds  before  he  got  home,  lest  his 
wife  should  take  the  money  away  from 
him.  Heber,  using  the  argument  which 
he  felt  would  be  of  most  avail,  tried  to 
frighten  the  man  into  soberness  by  pic 
turing  his  wife's  wrath  ;  whereupon  the 
adroit  scamp  replied  that  he  knew  what 
that  would  be,  and  had  taken  the  pre 
caution  to  have  his  hair  cut  short,  so  that 
she  could  not  get  a  grip  on  it.  Martyn 
could  no  more  have  chuckled  over  this 
depravity  than  he  could  have  chuckled 
over  the  fallen  angels  ;  but  Saint  Teresa 
6? 


Americans  and  Others 

could  have  laughed  outright,  her  won 
derful,  merry,  infectious  laugh ;  and  have 
then  proceeded  to  plead,  to  scold,  to 
threaten,  to  persuade,  until  a  chastened 
and  repentant  pedlar,  money  in  hand, 
and  some  dim  promptings  to  goodness 
tugging  at  his  heart,  would  have  tramped 
bravely  and  soberly  home. 

It  is  so  much  the  custom  to  obliterate 
from  religious  memoirs  all  vigorous  hu 
man  traits,  all  incidents  which  do  not 
tend  to  edification,  and  all  contemporary 
criticism  which  cannot  be  smoothed  into 
praise,  that  what  is  left  seems  to  the  dis 
heartened  reader  only  a  pale  shadow  of 
life.  It  is  hard  to  make  any  biography 
illustrate  a  theme,  or  prove  an  argument ; 
and  the  process  by  which  such  results 
are  obtained  is  so  artificial  as  to  be  open 
to  the  charge  of  untruth.  Because  Gen 
eral  Havelock  was  a  good  Baptist  as 
well  as  a  good  soldier,  because  he  ex 
pressed  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
(like  Cromwell's  "Trust  in  God,  and  keep 
68 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

your  powder  dry  "),  and  because  he  wrote 
to  his  wife,  when  sent  to  the  relief  of 
Lucknow,  "  May  God  give  me  wisdom 
and  strength  for  the  work!" — which, 
after  all,  was  a  natural  enough  thing  for 
any  man  to  say, — he  was  made  the 
subject  of  a  memoir  determinedly  and 
depressingly  devout,  in  which  his  fam 
ily  letters  were  annotated  as  though 
they  were  the  epistles  of  Saint  Paul.  Yet 
this  was  the  man  who,  when  Lucknow 
was  relieved,  behaved  as  if  nothing  out 
of  the  ordinary  had  happened  to  be 
siegers  or  besieged.  "He  shook  hands 
with  me,"  wrote  Lady  Inglis  in  her  jour 
nal,  "and  observed  that  he  feared  we 
had  suffered  a  great  deal."  That  was 
all.  He  might  have  said  as  much  had  the 
little  garrison  been  incommoded  by  a 
spell  of  unusual  heat,  or  by  an  epidemic 
of  measles. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  piety  is  a  by  no 
means  uncommon  attribute  of  soldiers, 
and  there  was  no  need  on  the  part  of 


Americans  and  Others 

the  Reverend  Mr.  Brock,  who  compiled 
these  shadowy  pages,  to  write  as  though 
General  Havelock  had  been  a  rare  spec 
ies  of  the  genius  military.  We  know  that 
what  the  English  Puritans  especially  re 
sented  in  Prince  Rupert  was  his  insist 
ence  on  regimental  prayers.  They  could 
pardon  his  raids,  his  breathless  charges, 
his  bewildering  habit  of  appearing  where 
he  was  least  expected  or  desired;  but 
that  he  should  usurp  their  own  especial 
prerogative  of  piety  was  more  than  they 
could  bear.  It  is  probable  that  Rupert's 
own  private  petitions  resembled  the  mem 
orable  prayer  offered  by  Sir  Jacob  Ast- 
ley  (a  hardy  old  Cavalier  who  was  both 
devout  and  humorous)  before  the  battle 
of  Edgehill :  "  Oh,  Lord,  Thou  knowest 
how  busy  I  must  be  this  day.  If  I  forget 
Thee,  do  not  Thou  forget  me.  March  on, 
boys ! " 

If  it  were  not  for  a  few  illuminating 
anecdotes,  and  the  thrice  blessed  custom 
of  letter  writing,  we  should  never  know 
70 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

what  manner  of  thing  human  goodness, 
exalted  human  goodness,  is ;  and  so  ac 
quiesce  ignorantly  in  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's 
judgment.  The  sinners  of  the  world  stand 
out  clear  and  distinct,  full  of  vitality,  and 
of  an  engaging  candour.  The  saints  of 
Heaven  shine  dimly  through  a  nebulous 
haze  of  hagiology.  They  are  embodi 
ments  of  inaccessible  virtues,  as  remote 
from  us  and  from  our  neighbours  as  if 
they  had  lived  on  another  planet.  There 
is  no  more  use  in  asking  us  to  imitate 
these  incomprehensible  creatures  than 
there  would  be  in  asking  us  to  climb  by 
easy  stages  to  the  moon.  Without  some 
common  denominator,  sinner  and  saint 
are  as  aloof  from  each  other  as  sinner 
and  archangel.  Without  some  clue  to 
the  saint's  spiritual  identity,  the  record 
of  his  labours  and  hardships,  fasts,  vis 
ions,  and  miracles,  offers  nothing  more 
helpful  than  bewilderment.  We  may  be 
edified  or  we  may  be  sceptical,  accord 
ing  to  our  temperament  and  training; 


Americans  and  Others 

but  a  profound  unconcern  devitalizes 
both  scepticism  and  edification.  What 
have  we  mortals  in  common  with  these 
perfected  prodigies  of  grace? 

It  was  Cardinal  Newman  who  first  en 
tered  a  protest  against  "minced"  saints, 
against  the  pious  and  popular  custom  of 
chopping  up  human  records  into  lessons 
for  the  devout.  He  took  exception  to  the 
hagiological  licence  which  assigns  lofty 
motives  to  trivial  actions.  "The  saint 
from  humility  made  no  reply."  "The 
saint  was  silent  out  of  compassion  for  the 
ignorance  of  the  speaker."  He  invited  us 
to  approach  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  in 
their  unguarded  moments,  in  their  or 
dinary  avocations,  in  their  moods  of 
gayety  and  depression ;  and,  when  we 
accepted  the  invitation,  these  figures, 
lofty  and  remote,  became  imbued  with 
life.  It  is  one  thing  to  know  that  Saint 
Chrysostom  retired  at  twenty-three  to  a 
monastery  near  Antioch,  and  there  spent 
six  years  in  seclusion  and  study.  It  is 
72 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

another  and  more  enlightening  thing  to 
be  made  aware,  through  the  medium  of 
his  own  letters,  that  he  took  this  step 
with  reasonable  doubts  and  misgivings, 
—  doubts  which  extended  to  the  fresh 
ness  of  the  monastery  bread,  misgivings 
which  concerned  themselves  with  the 
sweetness  of  the  monastery  oil.  And 
when  we  read  these  candid  expressions 
of  anxiety,  Saint  Chrysostom,  by  virtue 
of  his  healthy  young  appetite,  and  his 
distaste  (which  any  poor  sinner  can  share) 
for  rancid  oil,  becomes  a  man  and  a 
brother.  It  is  yet  more  consoling  to  know 
that  when  well  advanced  in  sainthood, 
when  old,  austere,  exiled,  and  suffering 
many  privations  for  conscience'  sake, 
Chrysostom  was  still  disposed  to  be  a 
trifle  fastidious  about  his  bread.  He 
writes  from  Caesarea  to  Theodora  that 
he  has  at  last  found  clean  water  to  drink, 
and  bread  which  can  be  chewed.  "  More 
over,  I  no  longer  wash  myself  in  broken 
crockery,  but  have  contrived  some  sort 
73 


Americans  and  Others 

of  bath;  also  I  have  a  bed  to  which  I 
can  confine  myself." 

If  Saint  Chrysostom  possessed,  accord 
ing  to  Newman,  a  cheerful  temper,  and 
"a  sunniness  of  mind  all  his  own,"  Saint 
Gregory  of  Nazianzus  was  a  fair  humour 
ist,  and  Saint  Basil  was  a  wit.  "  Pensive 
playfulness "  is  Newman's  phrase  for 
Basil,  but  there  was  a  speed  about  his 
retorts  which  did  not  always  savour  of 
pensiveness.  When  the  furious  governor 
of  Pontus  threatened  to  tear  out  his  liver, 
Basil,  a  confirmed  invalid,  replied  suavely, 
"  It  is  a  kind  intention.  My  liver,  as  at 
\  present  located,  has  given  me  nothing 
but  uneasiness." 

To  Gregory,  Basil  was  not  only  guide, 
philosopher,  and  friend  ;  but  also  a  cher 
ished  target  for  his  jests.  It  has  been 
wisely  said  that  we  cannot  really  love 
anybody  at  whom  we  never  laugh.  Greg 
ory  loved  Basil,  revered  him,  and  laughed 
at  him.  Does  Basil  complain,  not  un 
naturally,  that  Tiberina  is  cold,  damp, 
74 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

and  muddy,  Gregory  writes  to  him  un- 
sympathetically  that  he  is  a  "  clean-footed, 
tip-toeing",  capering  man."  Does  Basil 
promise  a  visit,  Gregory  sends  word  to 
Amphilochus  that  he  must  have  some 
fine  pot-herbs,  "lest  Basil  should  be 
hungry  and  cross."  Does  Gregory  visit 
Basil  in  his  solitude  at  Pontus,  he  ex 
presses  in  no  measured  terms  his  sense 
of  the  discomfort  he  endures.  It  would 
be  hard  to  find,  in  all  the  annals  of  cor 
respondence,  a  letter  written  with  a  more 
laudable  and  well-defined  intention  of 
teasing  its  recipient,  than  the  one  dis 
patched  to  Basil  by  Gregory  after  he  has 
made  good  his  escape  from  the  austeri 
ties  of  his  friend's  housekeeping. 

"  I  have  remembrance  of  the  bread  and 
of  the  broth,  —  so  they  were  named,  — 
and  shall  remember  them  ;  how  my  teeth 
stuck  in  your  hunches,  and  lifted  and 
heaved  themselves  as  out  of  paste.  You, 
indeed,  will  set  it  out  in  tragic  style,  tak 
ing  a  sublime  tone  from  your  own  suffer- 
75 


Americans  and  Others 

ings ;  but  for  me,  unless  that  true  Lady 
Bountiful,  your  mother,  had  rescued  me 
quickly,  showing  herself  in  my  need  like 
a  haven  to  the  tempest-tossed,  I  had 
been  dead  long  ago,  getting  myself  little 
honour,  though  much  pity,  from  Pontic 
hospitality." 

This  is  not  precisely  the  tone  in  which 
the  lives  of  the  saints  (of  any  saints  of 
any  creeds)  are  written.  Therefore  is  it 
better  to  read  what  the  saints  say  for 
themselves  than  what  has  been  said  about 
them.  This  is  not  precisely  the  point  of 
view  which  is  presented  unctuously  for 
our  consideration,  yet  it  makes  all  other 
points  of  view  intelligible.  It  is  contrary 
to  human  nature  to  court  privations.  We 
know  that  the  saints  did  court  them,  and 
valued  them  as  avenues  to  grace.  It  is 
in  accord  with  human  nature  to  meet 
privations  cheerfully,  and  with  a  whim 
sical  sense  of  discomfiture.  When  we 
hear  the  echo  of  a  saint's  laughter  ring 
ing  down  the  centuries,  we  have  a  clue 

76 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

to  his  identity ;  not  to  his  whole  and  he 
roic  self,  but  to  that  portion  of  him  which 
we  can  best  understand,  and  with  which 
we  claim  some  humble  brotherhood.  We 
ourselves  are  not  hunting  assiduously  for 
hardships  ;  but  which  one  of  us  has  not 
summoned  up  courage  enough  to  laugh 
in  the  face  of  disaster? 

There  is  no  reading  less  conducive  to 
good  spirits  than  the  recitals  of  mission 
aries,  or  than  such  pitiless  records  as 
those  compiled  by  Dr.  Thomas  William 
Marshall  in  his  two  portly  volumes  on 
"  Christian  Missions."  The  heathen,  as 
portrayed  by  Dr.  Marshall,  do  not  in  the 
least  resemble  the  heathen  made  familiar 
to  us  by  the  hymns  and  tracts  of  our  in 
fancy.  So  far  from  calling  on  us  to  deliver 
their  land  "from  error's  chain,"  they 
mete  out  prompt  and  cruel  death  to  their 
deliverers.  So  far  from  thirsting  for  Gos 
pel  truths,  they  thirst  for  the  blood  of  the 
intruders.  This  is  frankly  discouraging, 
and  we  could  never  read  so  many  pages 
77 


Americans  and  Others 

of  disagreeable  happenings,  were  it  not 
for  the  gayety  of  the  letters  which  Dr. 
Marshall  quotes,  and  which  deal  less  in 
heroics  than  in  pleasantries.  Such  men  as 
Bishop  Berneux,  the  Abbe  Retord,  and 
Father  Feron,  missionaries  in  Cochin- 
China  and  Corea,  all  possessed  that  pro 
tective  sense  of  humour  which  kept  up 
their  spirits  and  their  enthusiasms.  Father 
Feron,  for  example,  hidden  away  in  the 
"Valley  of  the  Pines,"  six  hundred  miles 
from  safety,  writes  to  his  sister  in  the 
autumn  of  1858  :  — 

"  I  am  lodged  in  one  of  the  finest  houses 
in  the  village,  that  of  the  catechist,  an 
opulent  man.  It  is  considered  to  be  worth 
a  pound  sterling.  Do  not  laugh  ;  there 
are  some  of  the  value  of  eightpence. 
My  room  has  a  sheet  of  paper  for  a  door, 
the  rain  niters  through  my  grass-covered 
roof  as  fast  as  it  falls  outside,  and  two 
large  kettles  barely  suffice  to  receive  it. 
.  .  .  The  Prophet  Elisha,  at  the  house  of 
the  Shunamite,  had  for  furniture  a  bed, 

78 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

a  table,  a  chair,  and  a  candlestick,  —  four 
pieces  in  all.  No  superfluity  there.  Now 
if  I  search  well,  I  can  also  find  four  articles 
in  my  room;  a  wooden  candlestick,  a 
trunk,  a  pair  of  shoes,  and  a  pipe.  Bed 
none,  chairs  none,  table  none.  Am  I, 
then,  richer  or  poorer  than  the  Prophet  ? 
It  is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer,  for, 
granting  that  his  quarters  were  more 
comfortable  than  mine,  yet  none  of  the 
things  belonged  to  him ;  while  in  my 
case,  although  the  candlestick  is  bor 
rowed  from  the  chapel,  and  the  trunk 
from  Monseigneur  Berneux,  the  shoes 
(worn  only  when  I  say  Mass)  and  the 
pipe  are  my  very  own." 

Surely  if  one  chanced  to  be  the  sister 
of  a  missionary  in  Corea,  and  apprehen 
sive,  with  good  cause,  of  his  personal 
safety,  this  is  the  kind  of  a  letter  one 
would  be  glad  to  receive.  The  comfort 
of  finding  one's  brother  disinclined  to 
take  what  Saint  Gregory  calls  "  a  sub 
lime  tone"  would  tend  —  illogically,  I 
79 


Americans  and  Others 

own,  —  to  ease  the  burden  of  anxiety. 
Even  the  remote  reader,  sick  of  discour 
aging  details,  experiences  a  renewal  of 
confidence,  and  all  because  Father  Fe- 
ron's  good  humour  is  of  the  common 
kind  which  we  can  best  understand,  and 
with  which  it  befits  every  one  of  us  to 
meet  the  vicissitudes  of  life. 

I  have  said  that  the  ardent  reformer  is 
seldom  gay.  Small  wonder,  when  his 
eyes  are  turned  upon  the  dark  places  of 
earth,  and  his  whole  strength  is  consumed 
in  combat.  Yet  Saint  Teresa,  the  most 
redoubtable  reformer  of  her  day,  was  gay. 
No  other  word  expresses  the  quality  of 
her  gladness.  She  was  not  only  spiritu 
ally  serene,  she  was  humanly  gay,  and 
this  in  the  face  of  acute  ill-health,  and 
many  profound  discouragements.  We 
have  the  evidence  of  all  her  contempo 
raries,  —  friends,  nuns,  patrons,  and  con 
fessors;  and  we  have  the  far  more  endur 
ing  testimony  of  her  letters,  in  proof  of 
this  mirthfulness  of  spirit,  which  won  its 
80 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

way  into  hearts,  and  lightened  the  aus 
terities  of  her  rule.  "  A  very  cheerful  and 
gentle  disposition,  an  excellent  temper, 
and  absolutely  void  of  melancholy," 
wrote  Ribera.  "  So  merry  that  when  she 
laughed,  every  one  laughed  with  her,  but 
very  grave  when  she  was  serious." 

There  is  a  strain  of  humour,  a  delicate 
and  somewhat  biting  wit  in  the  corres 
pondence  of  Saint  Teresa,  and  in  her 
admonitions  to  her  nuns.  There  is  also 
an  inspired  common  sense  which  we 
hardly  expect  to  find  in  the  writings  of  a 
religious  and  a  mystic.  But  Teresa  was 
not  withdrawn  from  the  world.  She 
travelled  incessantly  from  one  end  of 
Spain  to  the  other,  establishing  new 
foundations,  visiting  her  convents,  and 
dealing  with  all  classes  of  men,  from  the 
soldier  to  the  priest,  from  the  prince  to 
the  peasant.  The  severity  of  her  disci 
pline  was  tempered  by  a  tolerant  and 
half-amused  insight  into  the  pardonable 
foibles  of  humanity.  She  held  back  her 
81 


Americans  and  Others 

nuns  with  one  hand  from  "  the  frenzy  of 
self-mortification,"  which  is  the  mainstay 
of  spiritual  vanity,  and  with  the  other 
hand  from  a  too  solicitous  regard  for 
their  own  comfort  and  convenience. 
They  were  not  to  consider  that  the  fear 
of  a  headache,  —  a  non-existent  head 
ache  threatening  the  future  — was  suffi 
cient  excuse  for  absenting  themselves 
from  choir ;  and,  if  they  were  too  ailing 
to  practise  any  other  austerities,  the  rule 
of  silence,  she  reminded  them,  could  do 
the  feeblest  no  harm.  "  Do  not  contend 
wordily  over  matters  of  no  consequence," 
was  her  counsel  of  perfection.  "  Fly  a 
thousand  leagues  from  such  observations 
as  '  You  see  I  was  right,'  or  '  They  did 
me  an  injustice.' ' 

Small  wonder  that  peace  reigned 
among  the  discalced  Carmelites  so  long 
as  Teresa  ruled.  Practical  and  fearless 
(save  when  a  lizard  ran  up  her  sleeve,  on 
which  occasion  she  confesses  she  nearly 
"  died  of  fright,")  her  much-sought  ad- 
82 


Goodness  and  Gayety 

vice  was  always  on  the  side  of  reason. 
Asceticism  she  prized ;  dirt  she  abhorred. 
"  For  the  love  of  Heaven,"  she  wrote  to 
the  Provincial,  Gratian,  then  occupied 
with  his  first  foundation  of  discalced 
friars,  "  let  your  fraternity  be  careful  that 
they  have  clean  beds  and  tablecloths, 
even  though  it  be  more  expensive,  for  it 
is  a  terrible  thing  not  to  be  cleanly."  No 
persuasion  could  induce  her  to  retain  a 
novice  whom  she  believed  to  be  unfitted 
for  her  rule  :  —  "We  women  are  not  so 
easy  to  know,"  was  her  scornful  reply  to 
the  Jesuit,  Olea,  who  held  his  judgment 
in  such  matters  to  be  infallible ;  but 
nevertheless  her  practical  soul  yearned 
over  a  well-dowered  nun.  When  an  "ex 
cellent  novice"  with  a  fortune  of  six 
thousand  ducats  presented  herself  at  the 
gates  of  the  poverty-stricken  convent  in 
Seville,  Teresa,  then  in  Avila,  was  con 
sumed  with  anxiety  lest  such  an  acqui 
sition  should,  through  some  blunder,  be 
lost.  "  For  the  love  of  God,"  wrote  the 
83 


Americans  and  Others 

wise  old  saint  to  the  prioress  in  Seville, 
"  if  she  enters,  bear  with  a  few  defects, 
for  well  does  she  deserve  it." 

This  is  not  the  type  of  anecdote  which 
looms  large  in  the  volumes  of  "  minced 
saints  "  prepared  for  pious  readers,  and 
its  absence  has  accustomed  us  to  dis 
sever  humour  from  sanctity.  But  a  can 
did  soul  is,  as  a  rule,  a  humorous  soul, 
awake  to  the  tragi-comic  aspect  of  life, 
and  immaculately  free  from  self-decep 
tion.  And  to  such  souls,  cast  like  Teresa's 
in  heroic  mould,  comes  the  perception 
of  great  moral  truths,  together  with  the 
sturdy  strength  which  supports  enthusi 
asm  in  the  face  of  human  disabilities. 
They  are  the  lantern-bearers  of  every 
age,  of  every  race,  of  every  creed,  les 
dmes  bien  nees  whom  it  behooves  us  to 
approach  fearlessly  out  of  the  darkness, 
for  so  only  can  we  hope  to  understand. 


The  Nervous  Strain 

"Which  fiddle-strings  is  weakness  to  expredge 
my  nerves  this  night."  —  MRS.  GAMP. 

ANNA  ROBESON  BURR,  in  her 
scholarly  analysis  of  the  world's 
great  autobiographies,  has  found 
occasion  to  compare  the  sufferings  of  the 
American  woman  under  the  average  con 
ditions  of  life  with  the  endurance  of  the 
woman  who,  three  hundred  years  ago, 
'confronted  dire  vicissitudes  with  some 
thing  closely  akin  to  insensibility.  "  To 
day,"  says  Mrs.  Burr,  "  a  child's  illness, 
an  over-gay  season,  the  loss  of  an  in 
vestment,  a  family  jar,  —  these  are  ac 
cepted  as  sufficient  cause  for  over-strained 
nerves  and  temporary  retirement  to  a 
sanitarium.  Then,  war,  rapine,  fire,  sword, 
prolonged  and  mortal  peril,  were  consid 
ered  as  furnishing  no  excuse  to  men  or 
women  for  altering  the  habits,  or  slack- 

85 


Americans  and  Others 

ening  the  energies,  of  their  daily  exist 
ence." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Isabella  d'  Este  wit 
nessed  the  sacking  of  Rome  without  so 
much  as  thinking  of  nervous  prostration. 
This  was  nearly  four  hundred  years  ago, 
but  it  is  the  high-water  mark  of  feminine 
fortitude.  To  live  through  such  days 
and  nights  of  horror,  and  emerge  there 
from  with  unimpaired  vitality,  and  un- 
quenched  love  for  a  beautiful  and  danger 
ous  world,  is  to  rob  the  words  "  shock  " 
and  "strain"  of  all  dignity  and  meaning. 
To  resume  at  once  the  interrupted  duties 
and  pleasures  of  life  was,  for  the  March 
ioness  of  Mantua,  obligatory ;  but  none 
the  less  we  marvel  that  she  could  play 
her  role  so  well. 

A  hundred  and  thirty  years  later,  Sir 
Ralph  Verney,  an  exiled  royalist,  sent 
his  young  wife  back  to  England  to  peti 
tion  Parliament  for  the  restoration  of 
his  sequestrated  estates.  Lady  Verney's 
path  was  beset  by  difficulties  and  dan- 
86 


The  Nervous  Strain 

gers.  She  had  few  friends  and  many 
enemies,  little  money  and  cruel  cares. 
She  was,  it  is  needless  to  state,  pregnant 
when  she  left  France,  and  paused  in  her 
work  long  enough  to  bear  her  husband 
"a  lusty  boy";  after  which  Sir  Ralph 
writes  that  he  fears  she  is  neglecting  her 
guitar,  and  urges  her  to  practise  some 
new  music  before  she  returns  to  the 
Continent. 

Such  pages  of  history  make  tonic  read 
ing  for  comfortable  ladies  who,  in  their 
comfortable  homes,  are  bidden  by  their 
comfortable  doctors  to  avoid  the  strain 
of  anything  and  everything  which  makes 
the  game  of  life  worth  living.  It  is  our 
wont  to  think  of  our  great-great-great- 
grandmothers  as  spending  their  days  in 
undisturbed  tranquillity.  We  take  im 
aginary  naps  in  their  quiet  rooms,  envy 
ing  the  serenity  of  an  existence  unvexed 
by  telegrams,  telephones,  clubs,  lectures, 
committee -meetings,  suffrage  demon 
strations,  and  societies  for  harrying  our 
87 


Americans  and  Others 

neighbours.  How  sweet  and  still  those 
spacious  rooms  must  have  been  !  What 
was  the  remote  tinkling  of  a  harp,  com 
pared  to  pianolas,  and  phonographs,  and 
all  the  infernal  contrivances  of  science 
for  producing  and  perpetuating  noise? 
What  was  a  fear  of  ghosts  compared  to 
a  knowledge  of  germs?  What  was  re 
peated  child-bearing,  or  occasional  small 
pox,  compared  to  the  "  over-pressure  " 
upon  "  delicate  organisms,"  which  is 
making  the  fortunes  of  doctors  to-day  ? 
So  we  argue.  Yet  in  good  truth  our 
ancestors  had  their  share  of  pressure, 
and  more  than  their  share  of  ill-health. 
The  stomach  was  the  same  ungrateful 
and  rebellious  organ  then  that  it  is  now. 
Nature  was  the  same  strict  accountant 
then  that  she  is  now,  and  balanced  her 
debit  and  credit  columns  with  the  same 
relentless  accuracy.  The  "  liver  "  of  the 
last  century  has  become,  we  are  told,  the 
"  nerves  "  of  to-day  ;  which  transmigra 
tion  should  be  a  bond  of  sympathy  be- 
88 


The  Nervous  Strain 

tween  the  new  woman'and  that  unchange 
able  article,  man.  We  have  warmer  spirits 
and  a  higher  vitality  than  our  home- 
keeping  great-grandmothers  ever  had. 
We  are  seldom  hysterical,  and  we  never 
faint.  If  we  are  gay,  our  gayeties  in 
volve  less  exposure  and  fatigue.  If  we 
are  serious-minded,  our  attitude  towards 
our  own  errors  is  one  of  unaffected  leni 
ency.  That  active,  lively,  all-embracing 
assurance  of  eternal  damnation,  which 
was  part  of  John  Wesley's  vigorous 
creed,  might  have  broken  down  the  nerv 
ous  system  of  a  mollusk.  The  modern 
nurse,  jealously  guarding  her  patient 
from  all  but  the  neutralities  of  life,  may 
be  pleased  to  know  that  when  Wesley 
made  his  memorable  voyage  to  Savan 
nah,  a  young  woman  on  board  the  ship 
gave  birth  to  her  first  child ;  and  Wes 
ley's  journal  is  full  of  deep  concern,  be 
cause  the  other  women  about  her  failed 
to  improve  the  occasion  by  exhorting  the 
poor  tormented  creature  "to  fear  Him 
89 


Americans  and  Others 

who  is  able  to  inflict  sharper  pains  than 
these." 

As  for  the  industrious  idleness  which 
is  held  to  blame  for  the  wrecking  of  our 
nervous  systems,  it  was  not  unknown 
to  an  earlier  generation.  Madame  Le 
Brun  assures  us  that,  in  her  youth,  pleas 
ure-loving  people  would  leave  Brussels 
early  in  the  morning,  travel  all  day  to 
Paris,  to  hear  the  opera,  and  travel  all 
night  home.  "  That,"  she  observes,  - 
as  well  she  may,  —  "  was  considered  be 
ing  fond  of  the  opera."  A  paragraph  in 
one  of  Horace  Walpole's  letters  gives  us 
the  record  of  a  day  and  a  night  in  the 
life  of  an  English  lady,  —  sixteen  hours 
of  "  strain  "  which  would  put  New  York 
to  the  blush.  "  I  heard  the  Duchess  of 
Gordon's  journal  of  last  Monday,"  he 
writes  to  Miss  Berry  in  the  spring  of  1 791. 
"  She  first  went  to  hear  Handel's  music  in 
the  Abbey  ;  she  then  clambered  over  the 
benches,  and  went  to  Hastings's  trial  in 
the  Hall ;  after  dinner,  to  the  play ;  then 
90 


The  Nervous  Strain 

to  Lady  Lucan's  assembly ;  after  that  to 
Ranelagh,  and  returned  to  Mrs.  Hobart's 
faro-table ;  gave  a  ball  herself  in  the  even 
ing  of  that  morning,  into  which  she  must 
have  got  a  good  way ;  and  set  out  for 
Scotland  the  next  day.  Hercules  could 
not  have  accomplished  a  quarter  of  her 
labours  in  the  same  space  of  time." 

Human  happiness  was  not  to  this  gay 
Gordon  a  " painless  languor";  and  if 
she  failed  to  have  nervous  prostration  — 
under  another  name  —  she  was  cheated 
of  her  dues.  Wear-and-tear  plus  luxury 
is  said  to  break  down  the  human  system 
more  rapidly  than  wear-and-tear  plus 
want;  but  perhaps  wear-and-tear  plus 
pensive  self-consideration  is  the  most  de 
structive  agent  of  all.  "  Apres  tout,  c'est 
un  monde  passable"  ;  and  the  Duchess 
of  Gordon  was  too  busy  acquainting  her 
self  with  this  fact  to  count  the  costs,  or 
even  pay  the  penalty. 

One  thing  is  sure,  —  we  cannot  live 
in  the  world  without  vexation  and  with- 


Americans  and  Others 

out  fatigue.  We  are  bidden  to  avoid 
both,  just  as  we  are  bidden  to  avoid  an 
injudicious  meal,  a  restless  night,  a  close 
and  crowded  room,  an  uncomfortable 
sensation  of  any  kind,  —  as  if  these  things 
were  not  the  small  coin  of  existence.  An 
American  doctor  who  was  delicately 
swathing  his  nervous  patient  in  cotton 
wool,  explained  that,  as  part  of  the  pro 
cess,  she  must  be  secluded  from  every 
thing  unpleasant.  No  disturbing  news 
must  be  told  her.  No  needless  contra 
diction  must  be  offered  her.  No  disagree 
able  word  must  be  spoken  to  her.  "  But 
doctor,"  said  the  lady,  who  had  long 
before  retired  with  her  nerves  from  all 
lively  contact  with  realities,  "  who  is  there 
that  would  dream  of  saying  anything  dis 
agreeable  tome?"  "Madam,"  retorted 
the  physician,  irritated  for  once  into  un 
professional  candour,  "  have  you  then  no 
family  ?  " 

There  is  a  bracing  quality  about  family 
criticism,  if  we  are  strong  enough  to  bear 
92 


The  Nervous  Strain 

its  veracities.  What  makes  it  so  useful 
is  that  it  recognizes  existing  conditions. 
All  the  well-meant  wisdom  of  the  "  Don't 
Worry  "  books  is  based  upon  immunity 
from  common  sensations  and  from  every 
day  experience.  We  must  —  unless  we 
are  insensate  —  take  our  share  of  worry 
along  with  our  share  of  mishaps.  All  the 
kindly  counsellors  who,  in  scientific  jour 
nals,  entreat  us  to  keep  on  tap  "  a  vivid 
hope,  a  cheerful  resolve,  an  absorbing 
interest,"  by  way  of  nerve-tonic,  forget 
that  these  remedies  do  not  grow  under 
glass.  They  are  hardy  plants,  springing 
naturally  in  eager  and  animated  natures. 
Artificial  remedies  might  be  efficacious 
in  an  artificial  world.  In  a  real  world, 
the  best  we  can  do  is  to  meet  the  plagues 
of  life  as  Dick  Turpin  met  the  hangman's 
noose,  "  with  manly  resignation,  though 
with  considerable  disgust."  Moreover, 
disagreeable  things  are  often  very  stimu 
lating.  A  visit  to  some  beautiful  little 
rural  almshouses  in  England  convinced 
93 


Americans  and  Others 

me  that  what  kept  the  old  inmates  alert 
and  in  love  with  life  was,  not  the  charm 
of  their  bright-coloured  gardens,  nor  the 
comfort  of  their  cottage  hearths,  but  the 
vital  jealousies  and  animosities  which 
pricked  their  sluggish  blood  to  tingling. 
There  are  prophets  who  predict  the 
downfall  of  the  human  race  through  un 
due  mental  development,  who  foresee  us 
(flatteringly,  I  must  say)  winding  up  the 
world's  history  in  a  kind  of  intellectual 
apotheosis.  They  write  distressing  pages 
about  the  strain  of  study  in  schools,  the 
strain  of  examinations,  the  strain  of  com 
petition,  the  strain  of  night-work,  when 
children  ought  to  be  in  bed,  the  strain 
of  day-work,  when  they  ought  to  be  at 
play.  An  article  on  "  Nerves  and  Over- 
Pressure  "  in  the  "  Dublin  Review  "  con 
veys  the  impression  that  little  boys  and 
girls  are  dangerously  absorbed  in  their 
lessons,  and  draws  a  fearful  picture  of 
these  poor  innocents  literally  "  grinding 
from  babyhood."  It  is  over-study  (an 
94 


The  Nervous  Strain 

evil  from  which  our  remote  ancestors 
were  wholly  and  happily  exempt)  which 
lays,  so  we  are  told,  the  foundation  of  all 
our  nervous  disorders.  It  is  this  wasting- 
ambition  which  exhausts  the  spring  of 
childhood  and  the  vitality  of  youth. 

There  must  be  some  foundation  for 
fears  so  often  expressed ;  though  when 
we  look  at  the  blooming  boys  and  girls 
of  our  acquaintance,  with  their  placid 
ignorance  and  their  love  of  fun,  their 
glory  in  athletics  and  their  transparent 
contempt  for  learning,  it  is  hard  to  be 
lieve  that  they  are  breaking  down  their 
constitutions  by  study.  Nor  is  it  possi 
ble  to  acquire  even  the  most  modest  sub 
stitute  for  education  without  some  effort. 
The  carefully  fostered  theory  that  school- 
work  can  be  made  easy  and  enjoyable 
breaks  down  as  soon  as  anything,  how 
ever  trivial,  has  to  be  learned. 

Life  is  a  real  thing  in  the  school-room 
and  in  the  nursery  ;  and  children  —  left 
to  their  own  devices  —  accept  it  with 
95 


Americans  and  Others 

wonderful  courage  and  sagacity.  If  we 
allow  to  their  souls  some  noble  and  free 
expansion,  they  may  be  trusted  to  divert 
themselves  from  that  fretful  self-con 
sciousness  which  the  nurse  calls  naughti 
ness,  and  the  doctor,  nerves.  A  little 
wholesome  neglect,  a  little  discipline, 
plenty  of  play,  and  a  fair  chance  to  be 
glad  and  sorry  as  the  hours  swing  by,  — 
these  things  are  not  too  much  to  grant  to 
childhood.  That  careful  coddling  which 
deprives  a  child  of  all  delicate  and  strong 
emotions  lest  it  be  saddened,  or  excited, 
or  alarmed,  leaves  it  dangerously  soft  of 
fibre.  Coleridge,  an  unhappy  little  lad  at 
school,  was  lifted  out  of  his  own  troubles 
by  an  acquaintance  with  the  heroic 
sorrows  of  the  world.  There  is  no  page 
of  history,  however  dark,  there  is  no 
beautiful  old  tale,  however  tragic,  which 
does  not  impart  some  strength  and 
some  distinction  to  the  awakening  mind. 
It  is  possible  to  overrate  the  superla 
tive  merits  of  insipidity  as  a  mental 
96 


The  Nervous  Strain 

and  moral  force  in  the  development  of 
youth. 

There  are  people  who  surrender  them 
selves  without  reserve  to  needless  activi 
ties,  who  have  a  real  affection  for  tele 
phones,  and  district  messengers,  and  the 
importunities  of  their  daily  mail.  If  they 
are  women,  they  put  special  delivery 
stamps  on  letters  which  would  lose  no 
thing  by  a  month's  delay.  If  they  are 
men,  they  exult  in  the  thought  that  they 
can  be  reached  by  wireless  telegraphy 
on  mid-ocean.  We  are  apt  to  think  of 
these  men  and  women  as  painful  pro 
ducts  of  our  own  time  and  of  our  own 
land  ;  but  they  have  probably  existed 
since  the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel, 
—  a  nerve-racking  piece  of  work  which 
gave  peculiar  scope  to  strenuous  and 
impotent  energies. 

A  woman  whose  every  action  is  hur 
ried,  whose  every  hour  is  open  to  dis 
turbance,  whose  every  breath  is  drawn 
with  superfluous  emphasis,  will  talk 
97 


Americans  and  Others 

about  the  nervous  strain  under  which 
she  is  living,  as  though  dining  out  and 
paying  the  cook's  wages  were  the  things 
which  are  breaking  her  down.  The  rem 
edy  proposed  for  such  "  strain  "  is  with 
drawal  from  the  healthy  bufferings  of 
life,  —  not  for  three  days,  as  Burke  with 
drew  in  order  that  he  might  read  "  Eve 
lina,"  and  be  rested  and  refreshed  thereby ; 
but  long  enough  to  permit  of  the  notion 
that  immunity  from  bufferings  is  a  pos 
sible  condition  of  existence,  —  of  all  er 
rors,  the  most  irretrievable. 

It  has  been  many  centuries  since  Mar 
cus  Aurelius  observed  the  fretful  disquiet 
of  Rome,  which  must  have  been  strik 
ingly  like  our  fretful  disquiet  to-day,  and 
proffered  counsel,  unheeded  then  as  now : 
"  Take  pleasure  in  one  thing  and  rest  in 
it,  passing  from  one  social  act  to  another, 
thinking  of  God." 


The   Girl  Graduate 

"  When  I  find  learning  and  wisdom  united  in  one 
person,  I  do  not  wait  to  consider  the  sex;  I  bend  in 
admiration."  — LA  BRUYKRE. 

WE  shall  never  know,  though  we 
shall  always  wonder,  why  cer 
tain  phrases,  carelessly  flung 
to  us  by  poet  or  by  orator,  should  be 
endowed  with  regrettable  vitality.  When 
Tennyson  wrote  that  mocking  line  about 
"  sweet  girl  graduates  in  their  golden 
hair,"  he  could  hardly  have  surmised  that 
it  would  be  quoted  exuberantly  year  after 
weary  year,  or  that  with  each  successive 
June  it  would  reappear  as  the  inspiration 
of  flowery  editorials,  and  of  pictures,  mo 
notonously  amorous,  in  our  illustrated 
journals.  Perhaps  in  view  of  the  serious 
statistics  which  have  for  some  time  past 
girdled  the  woman  student,  statistics 
dealing  exhaustively  with  her  honours, 
99 


Americans  and  Others 

her  illnesses,  her  somewhat  nebulous 
achievements,  and  the  size  of  her  infant 
families,  it  is  as  well  to  realize  that  the 
big,  unlettered,  easy-going  world  regards 
her  still  from  the  standpoint  of  golden 
hair,  and  of  the  undying  charm  of  im 
maturity. 

In  justice  to  the  girl  graduate,  it  must 
be  said  that  she  takes  herself  simply  and 
sanely.  It  is  not  her  fault  that  statisti 
cians  note  down  every  breath  she  draws ; 
and  many  of  their  most  heartrending  alle 
gations  have  passed  into  college  jokes, 
traditional  jokes,  fated  to  descend  from 
senior  to  freshman  for  happy  years  to 
come.  The  student  learns  in  the  give- 
and-take  of  communal  life  to  laugh  at 
many  things,  partly  from  sheer  high 
spirits,  partly  from  youthful  cynicism,  and 
the  habit  of  sharpening  her  wit  against 
her  neighbour's.  It  is  commonly  believed 
that  she  is  an  unduly  serious  young  per 
son  with  an  insatiable  craving  for  know 
ledge  ;  in  reality  she  is  often  as  healthily 

100 


The  Girl  Graduate* 


unresponsive  as  is  her  Yale  or  Harvard 
brother.  If  she  cannot  yet  weave  her 
modest  acquirements  into  the  tissue  of 
her  life  as  unconcernedly  as  her  brother 
does,  it  is  not  because  she  has  been  edu 
cated  beyond  her  mental  capacity :  it  is 
because  social  conditions  are  not  for  her 
as  inevitable  as  they  are  for  him. 

Things  were  simpler  in  the  old  days, 
when  college  meant  for  a  woman  the  spe 
cial  training  needed  for  a  career ;  when, 
battling  often  with  poverty,  she  made 
every  sacrifice  for  the  education  which 
would  give  her  work  a  market  value ;  and 
when  all  she  asked  in  return  was  the  dig 
nity  of  self-support.  Now  many  girls,  un- 
spurred  by  necessity  or  by  ambition,  enter 
college  because  they  are  keen  for  per 
sonal  and  intellectual  freedom,  because 
they  desire  the  activities  and  the  pleas 
ures  which  college  generously  gives. 
They  bring  with  them  some  traditions  of 
scholarship,  and  some  knowledge  of  the 
world,  with  a  corresponding  elasticity  of 
101 


Americans  and  Others 

judgment.  They  may  or  may  not  be  good 
students,  but  their  influence  makes  for 
serenity  and  balance.  Their  four  years' 
course  lacks,  however,  a  definite  goal. 
It  is  a  training  for  life,  as  is  the  four  years' 
course  of  their  Yale  or  Harvard  brothers, 
but  with  this  difference,  —  the  college 
woman's  life  is  still  open  to  adjustment. 
Often  it  adjusts  itself  along  time-hon 
oured  lines,  and  with  time-honoured  re 
sults.  In  this  happy  event,  some  mystic 
figures  are  recalculated  in  scientific  jour 
nals,  the  graduate's  babies  are  added  to 
the  fractional  birth-rate  accredited  to  the 
college  woman,  her  family  and  friends 
consider  that,  individually,  she  has  settled 
the  whole  vexed  question  of  education 
and  domesticity,  and  the  world,  enam 
oured  always  of  the  traditional  type  of 
femininity,  goes  on  its  way  rejoicing.  If, 
however,  the  graduate  evinces  no  inclin 
ation  for  social  and  domestic  delights,  if 
she  longs  to  do  some  definite  work,  to 
breathe  the  breath  of  man's  activities, 
102 


The  Girl  Graduate 

and  to  guide  herself,  as  a  man  must  do, 
through  the  intricate  mazes  of  life,  it  is 
the  part  of  justice  and  of  wisdom  to  let 
her  try.  Nothing  steadies  the  restless 
soul  like  work,  —  real  work  which  has 
an  economic  value,  and  is  measured  by 
the  standards  of  the  world.  The  college 
woman  has  been  trained  to  independence 
of  thought,  and  to  a  wide  reasonableness 
of  outlook.  She  has  also  received  some 
equipment  in  the  way  of  knowledge ;  not 
more,  perhaps,  than  could  be  easily  ab 
sorbed  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  life,  but 
enough  to  give  her  a  fair  start  in  what 
ever  field  of  industry  she  enters.  If  she 
develops  into  efficiency,  if  she  makes 
good  her  hold  upon  work,  she  silences 
her  critics.  If  she  fails,  and  can,  in  Stev 
enson's  noble  words,  "take  honourable 
defeat  to  be  a  form  of  victory,"  she  has 
not  wasted  her  endeavours. 

It  is  strange  that  the  advantages  of 
a  college  course  for  girls — advantages 
solid  and  reckonable — should  be  still  so 
103 


Americans  and  Others 

sharply  questioned  by  men  and  women 
of  the  world.  It  is  stranger  still  that 
its  earnest  advocates  should  claim  for  it 
in  a  special  manner  the  few  merits  it 
does  not  possess.  When  President  David 
Starr  Jordan,  of  Leland  Stanford  Uni 
versity,  tells  us  that  "it  is  hardly  neces 
sary  among  intelligent  men  and  women 
to  argue  that  a  good  woman  is  a  better 
one  for  having  received  a  college  edu 
cation  ;  anything  short  of  this  is  inade 
quate  for  the  demands  of  modern  life  and 
modern  culture  " ;  we  can  only  echo  the 
words  of  the  wise  cat  in  Mr.  Froude's 
"  Cat's  Pilgrimage,"  "  There  may  be  truth 
in  what  you  say,  but  your  view  is  limited." 
Goodness,  indeed,  is  not  a  matter  easily 
opened  to  discussion.  Who  can  pigeon 
hole  goodness,  or  assign  it  a  locality? 
rBut  culture  (if  by  the  word  we  mean  that 
common  understandingof  the  world's  best 
traditions  which  enables  us  to  meet  one 
another  with  mental  ease)  is  not  the  fair 
of  a  college  education.  It  is  prim- 
104 


The  Girl  Graduate 

arily  a  matter  of  inheritance,  of  lifelong'N 
surrounding's,  of  temperament,  of  delicacy  I 
of  taste,  of  early  and  vivid  impressions./ 
It  is  often  found  in  college,  but  it  is  nojj 
a   collegiate   product.  The   steady   and 
absorbing  work  demanded  of  a  student 
who  is  seeking  a  degree,  precludes  wide 
wanderings  "in  the  realms  of  gold."  If, 
in    her   four  years   of    study,    she  has 
gained  some  solid  knowledge  of  one  or 
two  subjects,  with  a  power  of  approach 
in  other  directions,  she  has  done  well,  and 
justified  the  wisdom  of  the  group  system, 
which  makes  for  intellectual  discipline 
and  real  attainments. 

In  households  where  there  is  little  edu 
cation,  the  college  daughter  is  reverenced 
for  what  she  knows,  —  for  her  Latin,  her 
mathematics,  her  biology.  What  she 
does  not  know,  being  also  unknown  to 
her  family,  causes  no  dismay.  In  house 
holds  where  the  standard  of  cultivation 
is  high,  the  college  daughter  is  made  the 
subject  of  good-humoured  ridicule,  be- 
105 


Americans  and  Others 

cause  she  lacks  the  general  information  of 
her  sisters,  —  because  she  has  never  heard 
t)f  Abelard  and  Heloise,  of  Graham  of 
Claverhouse,  of  "The  Beggars'  Opera." 
Nobody  expects  the  college  son  to  know 
these  things,  or  is  in  the  least  surprised 
when  he  does  not ;  but  the  college  daughter 
is  supposed  to  be  the  repository  of  univer 
sal  erudition.  Every  now  and  then  some 
body  rushes  into  print  with  indignant 
illustrations  of  her  ignorance,  as  though 
ignorance  were  not  the  one  common 
possession  of  mankind.  Those  of  us  who 
are  not  undergoing  examinations  are  not 
driven  to  reveal  it,  —  a  comfortable  cir 
cumstance,  which  need  not,  however, 
make  us  unreasonably  proud. 

Therefore,  when  we  are  told  of  sopho 
mores  who  place  Shakespeare  in  the 
twelfth,  and  Dickens  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  who  are  under  the  impression 
that  " Don  Quixote"  flowed  from  the  fer 
tile  pen  of  Mr.  Marion  Crawford,  and 
who  are  not  aware  that  a  gentleman 
1 06 


The  Girl  Graduate 

named  James  Boswell  wrote  a  most 
entertaining  life  of  another  gentleman 
named  Samuel  Johnson,  we  need  not  lift 
up  horror-stricken  hands  to  Heaven,  but 
call  to  mind  how  many  other  things 
there  are  in  this  world  to  know.  That  a 
girl  student  should  mistake  "  Launcelot 
Gobbo"  for  King  Arthur's  knight  is  not 
a  matter  of  surprise  to  one  who  remem 
bers  how  three  young  men,  graduates  of 
the  oldest  and  proudest  colleges  in  the 
land,  placidly  confessed  ignorance  of 
"Petruchio"  Shakespeare,  after  all,  be 
longs  to  "  the  realms  of  gold."  The  higher 
education,  as  now  understood,  permits 
the  student  to  escape  him,  and  to  escape 
the  Bible  as  well.  As  a  consequence  of 
these  exemptions,  a  bachelor  of  arts  may 
be,  and  often  is,  unable  to  meet  his  in 
tellectual  equals  with  mental  ease.  Allu 
sions  that  have  passed  into  the  common 
vocabulary  of  cultivated  men  and  women 
have  no  meaning  for  him.  Does  not  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  tell  us  of  an  Oxford  stu- 
107 


Americans  and  Others 

dent  who  wanted  to  know  what  people 
meant  when  they  said  "hankering  after 
the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt";  and  has  not 
the  present  writer  been  asked  by  a  Har 
vard  graduate  if  she  could  remember  a 
Joseph,  "somewhere"  in  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  who  was  "  decoyed  into  Egypt  by 
a  coat  of  many  colours  "  ? 

To  measure  any  form  of  schooling  by 
its  direct  results  is  to  narrow  a  wide  issue 
to  insignificance.  The  by-products  of  ed 
ucation  are  the  things  which  count.  It 
has  been  said  by  an  admirable  educator 
that  the  direct  results  obtained  from  Eton 
and  Rugby  are  a  few  copies  of  indiffer 
ent  Latin  verse  ;  the  by-products  are  the 
young  men  who  run  the  Indian  Empire. 
We  may  be  startled  for  a  moment  by 
discovering  a  student  of  political  econ 
omy  to  be  wholly  and  happily  ignorant  of 
Mr.  Lloyd-George's  "  Budget,"  the  most 
vivid  object-lesson  of  our  day  ;  but  how 
many  Americans  who  talked  about  the 
budget,  and  had  impassioned  views  on 
1 08 


The  Girl  Graduate 

the  subject,  knew  what  it  really  con 
tained  ?  If  the  student's  intelligence  is 
so  trained  that  she  has  some  adequate 
grasp  of  economics,  if  she  has  been  lifted 
once  and  forever  out  of  the  Robin  Hood 
school  of  political  economy,  which  is  so 
dear  to  a  woman's  generous  heart,  it  mat 
ters  little  how  early  or  how  late  she  be 
comes  acquainted  with  the  history  of  her 
own  time.  "  Depend  upon  it,"  said  the 
wise  Dr.  Johnson,  whom  undergraduates 
are  sometimes  wont  to  slight,  "  no  woman 
was  ever  the  worse  for  sense  and  know 
ledge."  It  was  his  habit  to  rest  a  super 
structure  on  foundations. 

The  college  graduate  is  far  more  imma 
ture  than  her  characteristic  self-reliance 
leads  us  to  suppose.  By  her  side,  the  girl 
who  has  left  school  at  eighteen,  and  has 
lived  four  years  in  the  world,  is  weighted 
with  experience.  The  extension  of  youth 
is  surely  as  great  a  boon  to  women  as  to 
men.  There  is  time  enough  ahead  of  all 
of  us  in  which  to  grow  old  and  circum- 
109 


Americans  and  Others 

spect.  For  four  years  the  student's  inter 
ests  have  been  keen  and  concentrated,  the 
healthy,  limited  interests  of  a  community. 
For  four  years  her  pleasures  have  been 
simple  and  sane.  For  four  years  her  am 
bitions,  like  the  ambitions  of  her  college 
brother,  have  been  as  deeply  concerned 
with  athletics  as  with  text-books.  She  has 
had  a  better  chance  for  physical  develop 
ment  than  if  she  had  "  come  out "  at  eight 
een.  Her  college  life  has  been  exception 
ally  happy,  because  its  complications  have 
been  few,  and  its  freedom  as  wide  as  wis 
dom  would  permit.  The  system  of  self- 
government,  now  introduced  into  the 
colleges,  has  justified  itself  beyond  all 
questioning.  It  has  promoted  a  clear  un 
derstanding  of  honour,  it  has  taught  the 
student  the  value  of  discipline,  it  has  lent 
dignity  to  the  routine  of  her  life. 

Some  reverence  for  the  laws  ourselves  have  made, 

is  surely  the  first  and  best  lesson  which 
the  citizen  of  a  republic  needs  to  learn, 
no 


The  Girl  Graduate 

Writers  on  educational  themes  have 
pointed  out  —  with  tremors  of  apprehen 
sion  —  that  while  a  woman  student  work 
ing"  among  men  at  a  foreign  university 
is  mentally  stimulated  by  her  surround 
ings,  stimulated  often  to  the  point  of 
scholarship,  her  development  is  not  uni 
form  and  normal.  She  is  always  in  dan 
ger  of  sinking  her  femininity,  or  of  over 
emphasizing  it.  In  the  former  case,  she 
loses  charm  and  personality ;  in  the  latter, 
sanity  and  balance.  From  both  perils  the 
college  woman  in  the  United  States  is 
happily  exempt.  President  Jordan  offers 
as  a  plea  for  co-education  the  healthy 
sense  of  companionship  between  boy  and 
girl  students.  "  There  is  less  of  silliness 
and  folly,"  he  says,  "  where  man  is  not  a 
novelty."  But,  in  truth,  this  particular 
form  of  silliness  and  folly  is  at  a  discount 
in  every  woman's  college,  simply  be 
cause  the  interests  and  occupations  which 
crowd  the  student's  day  leave  little  room 
for  its  expansion. 

in 


Americans  and  Others 

The  three  best  things  about  the  college 
life  of  girls  are  its  attitude  towards  money 
(an  attitude  which  contrasts  sharply  with 
that  of  many  private  schools),  its  attitude 
towards  social  disparities,  and  its  attitude 
Cowards  men.  The  atmosphere  of  the 
college  is  reasonably  democratic.  Like 
gravitates  towards  like,  and  a  similarity 
of  background  and  tradition  forms  a  nat 
ural  basis  for  companionship  ;  but  there 
is  tolerance  for  other  backgrounds  which 
are  not  without  dignity,  though  they  may 
be  lacking  in  distinction.  Poverty  is  ad 
mittedly  inconvenient,  but  carries  no  re 
proach.  Light  hearts  and  jesting  tongues 
minimize  its  discomforts.  I  well  remember 
when  the  coming  of  Madame  Bernhardt 
to  Philadelphia  in  1901  fired  the  students 
of  Bryn  Mawr  College  with  the  justifiable 
ambition  to  see  this  great  actress  in  all 
her  finer  roles.  Those  who  had  money 
spent  it  royally.  Those  who  had  none 
offered  their  possessions,  —  books,  orna 
ments,  tea-cups,  for  sale.  "  Such  a  chance 
112 


The  Girl  Graduate 

to  buy  bargains,"  observed  one  young 
spendthrift,  who  had  been  endeavouring 
to  dispose  of  all  she  needed  most ;  "  but 
unluckily  everybody  wants  to  sell.  We 
know  now  the  importance  of  the  consum 
ing  classes,  and  how  useful  in  their  mod 
est  way  some  idle  rich  would  be." 

That  large  and  influential  portion  of 
the  community  which  does  not  know  its 
own  mind,  and  which  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  always  endeavouring  to  concili 
ate,  is  still  divided  between  its  honest 
desire  to  educate  women,  and  its  fear  lest 
the  woman,  when  educated,  may  lose  the 
conservative  force  which  is  her  most  val 
uable  asset.  That  small  and  combative 
portion  of  the  community  which  knows 
its  own  mind  accurately,  and  which  al 
ways  demands  the  impossible,  is  deter 
mined  that  the  college  girl  shall  betake 
herself  to  practical  pursuits,  that  she  shall 
wedge  into  her  four  years  of  work,  courses 
in  domestic  science,  the  chemistry  of  food, 
nursing,  dressmaking,  house  sanitation, 


Americans  and  Others 

pedagogy,  and  that  blight  of  the  nursery, 
—  child-study.  These  are  the  things,  we 
are  often  told,  which  it  behooves  a  wo 
man  to  know,  and  by  the  mastery  of 
which  she  is  able,  so  says  a  censorious 
writer  in  the  "Educational  Review,"  "  to 
repay  in  some  measure  her  debt  to  man, 
who  has  extended  to  her  the  benefits  of 
a  higher  education." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  girl  gradu 
ate,  the  youthful  bachelor  of  arts  who 
steps  smiling  through  the  serried  ranks 
of  students,  her  heart  beating  gladly  in 
response  to  their  generous  applause,  has 
little  thought  of  repaying  her  debt  to 
man.  Somebody  has  made  an  address 
which  she  was  too  nervous  to  hear,  and 
has  affirmed,  with  that  impressiveness 
which  we  all  lend  to  our  easiest  general 
izations,  that  the  purpose  of  college  is  to 
give  women  a  broad  and  liberal  educa 
tion,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  preserve 
and  develop  the  characteristics  of  a  com 
plete  womanhood.  Somebody  else  has 
114 


The  Girl  Graduate 

followed  up  the  address  with  a  few  fer 
vent  remarks,  declaring  that  the  only 
proof  of  competence  is  performance. 
"  The  world  belongs  to  those  who  have 
stormed  it."  This  last  ringing  sentence 
—  delivered  with  an  almost  defiant  air 
of  originality  —  has  perhaps  caught  the 
graduate's  ear,  but  its  familiar  cadence 
awakened  no  response.  Has  she  not  al 
ready  stormed  the  world  by  taking  her 
degree,  and  does  not  the  world  belong 
to  her,  in  any  case,  by  virtue  of  her  youth 
and  inexperience  ?  Never,  while  she  lives, 
will  it  be  so  completely  hers  as  on  the 
day  of  her  graduation.  Let  her  enjoy 
her  possession  while  she  may. 

And  her  equipment  ?  Well,  those  of  us 
who  call  to  mind  the  medley  of  unstable 
facts,  untenable  theories,  and  undesir 
able  accomplishments,  which  was  our 
substitute  for  education,  deem  her  solidly 
informed.  If  the  wisdom  of  the  college 
president  has  rescued  her  from  domestic 
science,  and  her  own  common  sense  has 


Americans  and  Others 

steered  her  clear  of  art,  she  has  had  a 
chance,  in  four  years  of  study,  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  knowledge.  Her  vocabu 
lary  is  curiously  limited.  At  her  age,  her 
grandmother,  if  a  gentlewoman,  used 
more  words,  and  used  them  better.  But 
then  her  grandmother  had  not  associated 
exclusively  with  youthful  companions. 
The  graduate  has  serious  views  of  life, 
which  are  not  amiss,  and  a  healthy  sense 
of  humour  to  enliven  them.  She  is  re 
sourceful,  honourable,  and  pathetically 
self-reliant.  In  her  highest  and  happiest 
development,  she  merits  the  noble  words 
in  which  an  old  Ferrara  chronicler  praises 
the  loveliest  and  the  most  maligned  wo 
man  in  all  history :  "  The  lady  is  keen 
and  intellectual,  joyous  and  human,  and 
possesses  good  reasoning  powers." 

To  balance  these  permanent  gains, 
there  are  some  temporary  losses.  The 
college  student,  if  she  does  not  take  up 
a  definite  line  of  work,  is  apt,  for  a  time 
at  least,  to  be  unquiet.  That  quality  so 
116 


The  Girl  Graduate 

lovingly  described  by  Peacock  as  "stay- 
athomeativeness  "  is  her  least  noticeable 
characteristic.  The  smiling  discharge  of 
uncongenial  social  duties,  which  disci 
plines  the  woman  of  the  world,  seems  to 
her  unseeing  eyes  a  waste  of  time  and 
opportunities.  She  has  read  little,  and 
that  little,  not  for  "  human  delight."  Ex 
cellence  in  literature  has  been  pointed 
out  to  her,  starred  and  double-starred, 
like  Baedeker's  cathedrals.  She  has  been 
taught  the  value  of  standards,  and  has 
been  spared  the  groping  of  the  undi 
rected  reader,  who  builds  up  her  own 
standards  slowly  and  hesitatingly  by  an 
endless  process  of  comparison.  The  sav 
ing  in  time  is  beneficial,  and  some  de 
fects  in  taste  have  been  remedied.  But 
human  delight  does  not  respond  to  au 
thority.  It  is  the  hour  of  rapturous  read 
ing  and  the  power  of  secret  thinking 
which  make  for  personal  distinction.  The 
shipwreck  of  education,  says  Dr.  Wil 
liam  James,  is  to  be  unable,  after  years 


Americans  and  Others 

of  study,  to  recognize  unticketed  emi- 
/nence.  The  best  result  obtainable  from 
I  college,  with  its  liberal  and  honourable 
I  traditions,  is  that  training  in  the  humani- 
I  ties  which  lifts  the  raw  boy  and  girl  into 
I  the  ranks  of  the  understanding ;  enabling 
/  them  to  sympathize  with  men's  mistakes, 
/  to  feel   the  beauty  of  lost  causes,  the 
pathos  of  misguided  epochs,  "the  cease 
less  whisper  of  permanent  ideals." 


The  Estranging  Sea 

14  God  bless  the  narrow  sea  which  keeps  her  off, 
And  keeps  our  Britain  whole  within  itself." 

SO  speaks  "  the  Tory  member's  elder 
son,"  in  "  The  Princess"  :- 

44 ...  God  bless  the  narrow  seas ! 
I  wish  they  were  a  whole  Atlantic  broad  " ; 

and  the  transatlantic  reader,  pausing  to 
digest  this  conservative  sentiment,  won 
ders  what  difference  a  thousand  leagues 
would  make.  If  the  little  strip  of  rough 
ened  water  which  divides  Dover  from 
Calais  were  twice  the  ocean's  breadth, 
could  the  division  be  any  wider  and 
deeper  than  it  is  ? 

We  Americans  cross  from  continent  to 
continent,  and  are  merged  blissfully  into 
the  Old- World  life.  Inured  from  infancy 
to  contrasts,  we  seldom  resent  the  unfa 
miliar.  Our  attitude  towards  it  is,  for  the 
most  part,  frankly  receptive,  and  full  of 
119 


Americans  and  Others 

joyous  possibilities.  We  take  kindly,  or 
at  least  tolerantly,  to  foreign  creeds  and 
customs.  We  fail  to  be  affronted  by 
what  we  do  not  understand.  We  are 
not  without  a  shadowy  conviction  that 
there  may  be  other  points  of  view  than 
our  own,  other  beliefs  than  those  we 
have  been  taught  to  cherish.  Mr.  Birrell, 
endeavouring  to  account  for  Charlotte 
Bronte's  hostility  to  the  Belgians,  —  who 
had  been  uncommonly  kind  to  her,  - 
says  that  she  "  had  never  any  patience" 
with  Catholicism.  The  remark  invites 
the  reply  of  the  Papal  chamberlain  to 
Prince  Herbert  Bismarck,  when  that  no 
bleman,  being  in  attendance  upon  the 
Emperor,  pushed  rudely —  and  unbidden 
—  into  Pope  Leo's  audience  chamber.  "  I 
am  Prince  Herbert  Bismarck,"  shouted 
the  German.  "That,"  said  the  urbane 
Italian,  "  explains,  but  does  not  excuse 
your  conduct." 

So  much  has  been  said  and  written 
about   England's  "splendid   isolation," 
120 


The  Estranging  Sea 

the  phrase  has  grown  so  familiar  to  Eng 
lish  eyes  and  ears,  that  the  political  and 
social  attitude  which  it  represents  is  a 
source  of  pride  to  thousands  of  English 
men  who  are  intelligent  enough  to  know 
what  isolation  costs.  "  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance,"  says  the  "Spectator,"  "that 
we  should  understand  that  the  temper 
with  which  England  regards  the  other 
states  of  Europe,  and  the  temper  with 
which  those  states  regard  her,  is  abso 
lutely  different."  And  then,  with  ill-con 
cealed  elation,  the  writer  adds:  "The 
English  are  the  most  universally  disliked 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth." 

Diplomatically,  this  may  be  true, 
though  it  is  hard  to  see  why.  Socially 
and  individually,  it  is  not  true  at  all.  The 
English  possess  too  many  agreeable 
traits  to  permit  them  to  be  as  much  dis 
liked  as  they  think  and  hope  they  are. 
Even  on  the  Continent,  even  in  that 
strange  tourist  world  where  hostilities 
grow  apace,  where  the  courtesies  of  life 
121 


Americans  and  Others 

are  relaxed,  and  where  every  nationality 
presents  its  least  lovable  aspect,  the  Eng 
lish  can  never  aspire  to  the  prize  of  un 
popularity.  They  are  too  silent,  too  clean, 
too  handsome,  too  fond  of  fresh  air,  too 
schooled  in  the  laws  of  justice  which 
compel  them  to  acknowledge — however 
reluctantly — the  rights  of  other  men. 
They  are  certainly  uncivil,  but  that  is  a 
matter  of  no  great  moment.  We  do  not 
demand  that  our  fellow  tourists  should 
be  urbane,  but  that  they  should  evince  a 
sense  of  propriety  in  their  behaviour,  that 
they  should  be  decently  reluctant  to  an 
noy.  There  is  distinction  in  the  English 
man's  quietude,  and  in  his  innate  re 
spect  for  order. 

But  why  should  he  covet  alienation  ? 
Why  should  he  dread  popularity,  lest  it 
imply  that  he  resembles  other  men? 
When  the  tide  of  fortune  turned  in  the 
South  African  war,  and  the  news  of  the 
relief  of  Mafeking  drove  London  mad 
with  joy,  there  were  Englishmen  who 
122 


The  Estranging  Sea 

expressed  grave  alarm  at  the  fervid  dem 
onstrations  of  the  populace.  England, 
they  said,  was  wont  to  take  her  defeats 
without  despondency,  and  her  victories 
without  elation.  They  feared  the  national 
character  was  changing,  and  becoming 
more  like  the  character  of  Frenchmen 
and  Americans. 

This  apprehension  —  happily  un 
founded —  was  very  insular  and  very 
English.  National  traits  are,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  as  enduring  as  the  mountain-tops. 
They  survive  all  change  of  policies,  all 
shifting  of  boundary  lines,  all  expansion 
and  contraction  of  dominion.  When 
Froissart  tranquilly  observed,  "The  Eng 
lish  are  affable  to  no  other  nation  than 
themselves,"  he  spoke  for  the  centuries 
to  come.  Sorbieres,  who  visited  England 
in  1663,  who  loved  the  English  turf,  hated 
and  feared  the  English  cooking,  and 
deeply  admired  his  hospitable  English 
hosts,  admitted  that  the  nation  had  "  a 
propensity  to  scorn  all  the  rest  of  the 
123 


Americans  and  Others 

world."  The  famous  verdict,  "  Les  An- 
glais  sont  justes,  mais pasbons"  crystal 
lizes  the  judgment  of  time.  Foreign 
opinion  is  necessarily  an  imperfect  diag 
nosis,  but  it  has  its  value  to  the  open 
mind.  He  is  a  wise  man  who  heeds  it, 
and  a  dull  man  who  holds  it  in  derision. 
When  an  English  writer  in  "  Macmillan  " 
remarks  with  airy  contempt  that  French 
criticisms  on  England  have  "  all  the  pi 
quancy  of  a  woman's  criticisms  on  a 
man,"  the  American  —  standing  outside 
the  ring  —  is  amused  by  this  superb 
simplicity  of  self-conceit. 

Fear  of  a  French  invasion  and  the  care 
fully  nurtured  detestation  of  the  Papacy, 
—  these  two  controlling  influences  must 
be  held  responsible  for  prejudices  too 
deep  to  be  fathomed,  too  strong  to  be 
overcome.  "We  do  naturally  hate  the 
French,"  observes  Mr.  Pepys,  with  genial 
candour ;  and  this  ordinary,  everyday 
prejudice  darkened  into  fury  when  Na 
poleon's  conquests  menaced  the  world. 
124 


The  Estranging  Sea 

Our  school  histories  have  taught  us  (it 
is  the  happy  privilege  of  a  school  history 
to  teach  us  many  things  which  make  no 
impression  on  our  minds)  that  for  ten 
years  England  apprehended  a  descent 
upon  her  shores ;  but  we  cannot  realize 
what  the  apprehension  meant,  how  it  ate 
its  way  into  the  hearts  of  men,  until  we 
stumble  upon  some  such  paragraph  as 
this,  from  a  letter  of  Lord  Jeffrey's,  written 
to  Francis  Horner  in  the  winter  of  1808 : 
<(  For  my  honest  impression  is  that  Bon 
aparte  will  be  in  Dublin  in  about  fifteen 
months,  perhaps.  And  then,  if  I  survive, 
I  shall  try  to  go  to  America." 

"If  I  survive  I"  What  wonder  that 
Jeffrey,  who  was  a  clear-headed,  unim 
aginative  man,  cherished  all  his  life  a 
cold  hostility  to  France  ?  What  wonder 
that  the  painter  Haydon,  who  was  highly 
imaginative  and  not  in  the  least  clear 
headed,  felt  such  hostility  to  be  an  essen 
tial  part  of  patriotism?  "  In  my  day,"  he 
writes  in  his  journal,  "  boys  were  born, 
125 


Americans  and  Others 

nursed,  and  grew  up,  hating  and  to  hate 
the  name  of  Frenchman."  He  did  hate 
it  with  all  his  heart,  but  then  his  earliest 
recollection  —  when  he  was  but  four  years 
old  —  was  seeing  his  mother  lying  on  her 
sofa  and  crying  bitterly.  He  crept  up  to 
her,  puzzled  and  frightened,  poor  baby, 
and  she  sobbed  out :  "They  have  cut  off 
the  Queen  of  France's  head,  my  dear." 
Such  an  ineffaceable  recollection  colours 
childhood  and  sets  character.  It  is  an 
education  for  life. 

As  for  the  Papacy,  —  well,  years  have 
softened  but  not  destroyed  England's  he 
reditary  detestation  of  Rome.  The  easy 
tolerance  of  the  American  for  any  reli 
gion,  or  for  all  religions,  or  for  no  religion 
at  all,  is  the  natural  outcome  of  a  mixed 
nationality,  and  of  a  tolerably  serene  back 
ground.  We  have  shed  very  little  of  our 
blood,  or  of  our  neighbour's  blood,  for  the 
faith  that  was  in  us,  or  in  him ;  and,  during 
the  past  half-century,  forbearance  has 
broadened  into  unconcern.  Even  the  oc- 
126 


The  Estranging  Sea 

casional  refusal  of  a  pastor  to  allow  a 
cleric  of  another  denomination  to  preach 
in  his  church,  can  hardly  be  deemed  a 
violent  form  of  persecution. 

What  American  author,  for  example, 
can  recall  such  childish  memories  as  those 
which  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  describes  with 
illuminating  candour  in  "  Father  and 
Son"?  "We  welcomed  any  social  dis 
order  in  any  part  of  Italy,  as  likely  to 
be  annoying  to  the  Papacy.  If  there 
was  a  custom-house  officer  stabbed  in  a 
fracas  at  Sassari,  we  gave  loud  thanks 
that  liberty  and  light  were  breaking  in 
upon  Sardinia."  What  American  sci 
entist,  taking  a  holiday  in  Italy,  ever 
carried  around  with  him  such  uncom 
fortable  sensations  as  those  described  by 
Professor  Huxley  in  some  of  his  Roman 
letters  ?  "  I  must  have  a  strong  strain  of 
Puritan  blood  in  me  somewhere,"  he 
writes  to  Sir  John  Donnelly,  after  a  morn 
ing  spent  at  Saint  Peter's,  "for  I  am  pos 
sessed  with  a  desire  to  arise  and  slay  the 
127 


Americans  and  Others 

whole  brood  of  idolaters,  whenever  I 
assist  at  one  of  these  services." 

Save  and  except  Miss  Georgiana  Pod- 
snap's  faltering  fancy  for  murdering  her 
partners  at  a  ball,  this  is  the  most  blood 
thirsty  sentiment  on  record,  and  suggests 
but  a  limited  enjoyment  of  a  really  beau 
tiful  service.  Better  the  light-hearted  un 
concern  of  Mr.  John  Richard  Green,  the 
historian,  who,  albeit  a  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England,  preferred  going  to 
the  Church  of  Rome  when  Catholicism 
had  an  organ,  and  Protestantism,  a  har 
monium.  "The  difference  in  truth  be 
tween  them  does  n't  seem  to  me  to  make 
up  for  the  difference  in  instruments." 

Mr.  Lowell  speaks  somewhere  of  a 
''divine  provincialism,"  which  expresses 
the  sturdy  sense  of  a  nation,  and  is  but 
ill  replaced  by  a  cosmopolitanism  lack 
ing  in  virtue  and  distinction.  Perhaps 
this  is  England's  gift,  and  insures  for  her 
a  solidarity  which  Americans  lack.  Ignor 
ing  or  misunderstanding  the  standards 
128 


The  Estranging  Sea 

of  other  races,  she  sets  her  own  so  high 
we  needs  must  raise  our  eyes  to  consider 
them.  Yet  when  Mr.  Arnold  scandalized 
his  fellow  countrymen  by  the  frank  con 
fession  that  he  found  foreign  life  "  liber 
ating,"  what  did  he  mean  but  that  he 
refused  to 

"  drag  at  each  remove  a  lengthening  chain  "? 

His  mind  leaped  gladly  to  meet  new 
issues  and  fresh  tides  of  thought;  he 
stood  ready  to  accept  the  reasonableness 
of  usages  which  differed  materially  from 
his  own  ;  and  he  took  delight  in  the  trivial 
happenings  of  every  day,  precisely  be 
cause  they  were  un-English  and  unfa 
miliar.  Even  the  names  of  strange  places, 
of  German  castles  and  French  villages, 
gave  him,  as  they  give  Mr.  Henry  James, 
a  curious  satisfaction,  a  sense  of  har 
mony  and  ordered  charm. 

In  that  caustic  volume,  "  Elizabeth  in 
Riigen,"  there  is  an  amusing  description 
of  the  indignation  of  the  bishop's  wife, 
129 


Americans  and  Others 

Mrs.  Harvey-Browne,  over  what  she  con 
siders  the  stupidities  of  German  speech. 

"  What,"  she  asks  with  asperity, "  could 
be  more  supremely  senseless  than  calling 
the  Baltic  the  Ostsee?" 

"  Well,  but  why  should  n't  they,  if  they 
want  to?"  says  Elizabeth  densely. 

"But,  dear  Frau  X,  it  is  so  foolish. 
East  sea !  Of  what  is  it  the  east  ?  One 
is  always  the  east  of  something,  but  one 
does  n't  talk  about  it.  The  name  has  no 
meaning  whatever.  Now  '  Baltic '  exactly 
describes  it." 

This  is  fiction,  but  it  is  fiction  easily 
surpassed  by  fact,  —  witness  the  English 
tourist  in  France  who  said  to  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen  that  it  was  "unnatural"  for 
soldiers  to  dress  in  blue.  Then,  remem 
bering  certain  British  instances,  he  added 
hastily :  "  Except,  indeed,  for  the  Artil 
lery,  or  the  Blue  Horse."  "  The  English 
model,"  comments  Sir  Leslie,  "  with  all 
its  variations,  appeared  to  him  to  be  or 
dained  by  nature." 

130 


The  Estranging  Sea 

The  rigid  application  of  one  nation's 
formulas  to  another  nation's  manners  has 
its  obvious  disadvantages.  It  is  praise 
worthy  in  an  Englishman  to  carry  his 
conscience  —  like  his  bathtub  —  wher 
ever  he  goes,  but  both  articles  are  sadly 
in  his  way.  The  American  who  leaves 
his  conscience  and  his  tub  at  home,  and 
who  trusts  to  being  clean  and  good  after 
a  foreign  fashion,  has  an  easier  time,  and 
is  not  permanently  stained.  Being  less 
cock-sure  in  the  start  about  his  standing 
with  Heaven,  he  is  subject  to  reasonable 
doubts  as  to  the  culpability  of  other  peo 
ple.  The  joyous  outdoor  Sundays  of 
France  and  Germany  please  him  at  least 
as  well  as  the  shut-in  Sundays  of  Eng 
land  and  Scotland.  He  takes  kindly  to 
concerts,  enlivened,  without  demoraliza 
tion,  by  beer,  and  wonders  why  he  can 
not  have  them  at  home.  Whatever  is 
distinctive,  whatever  is  national,  inter 
ests  and  delights  him ;  and  he  seldom 
feels  called  upon  to  decide  a  moral  issue 


Americans  and  Others 

which   is   not   submitted   to    his   judg 
ment. 

I  was  once  in  Valais  when  a  rude  play 
was  acted  by  the  peasants  of  Vissoye. 
It  set  forth  the  conversion  of  the  Huns 
to  Christianity  through  the  medium  of 
a  miracle  vouchsafed  to  Zacheo,  the 
legendary  apostle  of  Anniviers.  The  lit 
tle  stage  was  erected  on  a  pleasant  hill 
side,  the  procession  bearing  the  cross 
wound  down  from  the  village  church, 
the  priests  from  all  the  neighbouring 
towns  were  present,  and  the  pious  Valai- 
sans —  as  overjoyed  as  if  the  Huns  were 
a  matter  of  yesterday  —  sang  a  solemn 
Te  Deum  in  thanksgiving  for  the  con 
version  of  their  land.  It  would  be  hard 
to  conceive  of  a  drama  less  profane ;  in 
deed,  only  religious  fervour  could  have 
breathed  life  into  so  much  controversy  ; 
yet  I  had  English  friends,  intelligent, 
cultivated,  and  deeply  interested,  who 
refused  to  go  with  me  to  Vissoye  be 
cause  it  was  Sunday  afternoon.  They 
132 


The  Estranging  Sea 

stood  by  their  guns,  and  attended  their 
own  service  in  the  drawing-room  of  the 
deserted  little  hotel  at  Zinal ;  gaming,  I 
trust,  the  approval  of  their  own  con 
sciences,  and  losing  the  experience  of  a 
lifetime. 

Disapprobation  has  ever  been  a  power 
ful  stimulus  to  the  Saxon  mind.  The 
heroic  measures  which  it  enforces  com 
mand  our  faltering  homage,  and  might 
incite  us  to  emulation,  were  we  not  tem 
peramentally  disposed  to  ask  ourselves 
the  fatal  question,  "Is  it  worth  while?" 
When  we  remember  that  twenty-five 
thousand  people  in  Great  Britain  left  off 
eating  sugar,  by  way  of  protest  against 
slavery  in  the  West  Indies,  we  realize 
how  the  individual  Englishman  holds 
himself  morally  responsible  for  wrongs 
he  is  innocent  of  inflicting,  and  power 
less  to  redress.  Hood  and  other  light- 
minded  humourists  laughed  at  him  for 
drinking  bitter  tea ;  but  he  was  not  to 
be  shaken  by  ridicule.  Miss  Edgeworth 
133 


Americans  and  Others 

voiced  the  conservative  sentiment  of  her 
day  when  she  objected  to  eating  un 
sweetened  custards  ;  but  he  was  not  to 
be  chilled  by  apathy. 

The  same  strenuous  spirit  impelled  the 
English  to  express  their  sympathy  for 
Captain  Alfred  Dreyfus  by  staying  away 
from  the  Paris  fair  of  1900.  The  London 
press  loudly  boasted  that  Englishmen 
would  not  give  the  sanction  of  their  pres 
ence  to  any  undertaking  of  the  French 
Government,  and  called  attention  again 
and  again  to  their  absence  from  the  ex 
hibition.  I  myself  was  asked  a  number 
of  times  in  England  whether  this  absence 
were  a  noticeable  thing ;  but  truth  com 
pelled  me  to  admit  that  it  was  not.  With 
Paris  brimming  over  like  a  cup  filled  to 
the  lip,  with  streets  and  fair-grounds 
thronged,  with  every  hotel  crowded  and 
every  cab  engaged,  and  with  twenty 
thousand  of  my  own  countrymen  clam 
orously  enlivening  the  scene,  it  was  not 
possible  to  miss  anybody  anywhere. 
134 


The  Estranging  Sea 

It  obviously  had  not  occurred  to  Amer 
icans   to   see   any    connection   between 
the  trial  of  Captain  Dreyfus  and  their 
enjoyment   of  the    most   beautiful   and 
brilliant  thing  that  Europe  had  to  give. 
The  pretty  adage,  "  Tout  howne  a  deux 
pays :  le  sien  et puis  la  France"  is  truer 
of  us  than  of  any  other  people  in  the 
.world.  And  we  may  as  well  pardon  a 
'  nation  her  transgressions,  if  we  cannot 
''keep  away  from  her  shores. 

England's  public  utterances  anent  the 
United  States  are  of  the  friendliest  char 
acter.  Her  newspapers  and  magazines 
say  flattering  things  about  us.  Her  poet- 
laureate —  unlike  his  great  predecessor 
who  unaffectedly  detested  us  — began 
his  official  career  by  praising  us  with 
such  fervour  that  we  felt  we  ought  in 
common  honesty  to  tell  him  that  we  were 
nothing  like  so  good  as  he  thought  us. 
An  English  text-book,  published  a  few 
years  ago,  explains  generously  to  the 
school-boys  of  Great  Britain  that  the 
135 


Americans  and  Others 

United  States  should  not  be  looked  upon 
as  a  foreign  nation.  "  They  are  peopled 
by  men  of  our  blood  and  faith,  enjoy  in  a 
great  measure  the  same  laws  that  we  do, 
read  the  same  Bible,  and  acknowledge, 
like  us,  the  rule  of  King  Shakespeare." 
All  this  is  very  pleasant,  but  the  fact  re 
mains  that  Englishmen  express  surprise 
and  pain  at  our  most  innocent  idiosyn 
crasies.  They  correct  our  pronunciation 
and  our  misuse  of  words.  They  regret  our 
nomadic  habits,  our  shrill  voices,  our 
troublesome  children,  our  inability  to 
climb  mountains  or  "  do  a  little  glacier 
w.ork"  (it  sounds  like  embroidery,  but 
means  scrambling  perilously  over  ice), 
our  taste  for  unwholesome  —  or,  in  other 
words,  seasoned  —  food.  When  I  am 
reproved  by  English  acquaintances  for 
the  "  Americanisms  "  which  disfigure  my 
speech  and  proclaim  my  nationality,  I 
cannot  well  defend  myself  by  asserting 
that  I  read  the  same  Bible  as  they  do,  — 
for  maybe,  after  all,  I  don't. 
136 


The  Estranging  Sea 

The  tenacity  with  which  English  resi 
dents  on  the  Continent  cling  to  the  cus 
toms  and  traditions  of  their  own  country 
is  pathetic  in  its  loyalty  and  in  its  mis 
conceptions.    Their  scheme  of  life  does 
not  permit  a  single  foreign  observance, 
their  range  of    sympathies   seldom   in 
cludes  a  single  foreign  ideal.  "  An  Eng 
lishman's   happiness,"   says  M.    Taine, 
"  consists  in  being  at  home  at  six  in  the 
evening,  with  a  pleasing,  attached  wife, 
four  or  five  children,  and  respectful  do 
mestics."    This  is  a  very  good  notion  of 
happiness,  no  fault  can  be  found  with  it, 
and  something  on  the  same  order,  though 
less  perfect  in  detail,  is  highly  prized  a: 
commended  in  America.  But  it  does  r 
embrace  every  avenue  of  delight.    T 
Frenchman  who  seems  never  to  go  hon 
who  seldom  has  a  large  family,  whc 
wife  is  often  his  business  partner  a 
helpmate,  and  whose  servants  are  frienc 
allies  rather  than  automatic  menials,  ( 
joys  life  also,  and  with  some  degree 
137 


Americans  and  Others 

intelligence.  He  may  be  pardoned  for 
resenting  the  attitude  of  English  exiles, 
who,  driven  from  their  own  country  by 
the  harshness  of  the  climate,  or  the  cruel 
cost  of  living,  never  cease  to  deplore  the 
unaccountable  foreignness  of  foreigners. 
"Our  social  tariff  amounts  to  prohibi 
tion,"  said  a  witty  Englishman  in  France. 
"  Exchange  of  ideas  takes  place  only  at 
the  extreme  point  of  necessity." 

It  is  not  under  such  conditions  that 
any  nation  gives  its  best  to  strangers.  It 
Us  not  to  the  affronted  soul  that  the  charm 
}of  the  unfamiliar  makes  its   sweet  and 
powerful  appeal.  Lord  Byron  was  furious 
when  one  of   his  countrywomen  called 
Chamonix  "  rural";   yet,  after  all,  the 
poor  creature  was  giving   the   scenery 
what  praise  she  understood.    The  Eng 
lishman  who  complained  that  he  could 
not  look  out  of  his  window  in  Rome  with 
out  seeing  the  sun,  had  a  legitimate  griev 
ance  (we  all  know  what  it  is  to  sigh  for 
grey  skies,  and  for  the  unutterable  rest 
138 


The  Estranging  Sea 

they  bring) ;  but  if  we  want  Rome,  we 
must  take  her  sunshine,  along  with  her 
beggars  and  her  Church.  Accepted  sym 
pathetically,  they  need  not  mar  our  in 
finite  content. 

There  is  a  wonderful  sentence  in  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward's  "  Marriage  of  William 
Ashe,"  which  subtly  and  strongly  pro 
tests  against  the  blight  of  mental  isola 
tion.  Lady  Kitty  Bristol  is  reciting  Cor- 
neille  in  Lady  Grosville's  drawing-room. 
"Her  audience,"  says  Mrs.  Ward, 
"  looked  on  at  first  with  the  embarrassed 
or  hostile  air  which  is  the  Englishman's 
natural  protection  against  the  great 
things  of  art."  To  write  a  sentence  at 
once  so  caustic  and  so  flawless  is  to  tri 
umph  over  the  limitations  of  language. 
The  reproach  seems  a  strange  one  to 
hurl  at  a  nation  which  has  produced  the 
noblest  literature  of  the  world  since  the 
light  of  Greece  waned  ;  but  we  must  re 
member  that  distinction  of  mind,  as  Mrs. 
Ward  understands  it,  and  as  it  was  un- 
139 


Americans  and  Others 

derstood  by  Mr.  Arnold,  is  necessarily 
allied  with  a  knowledge  of  French  arts 
and  letters,  and  with  some  insight  into 
the  qualities  which  clarify  French  con 
versation.  "  Divine  provincialism  "  had 
no  halo  for  the  man  who  wrote  "Friend 
ship's  Garland."  He  regarded  it  with  an 
impatience  akin  to  mistrust,  and  border 
ing  upon  fear.  Perhaps  the  final  word  was 
spoken  long  ago  by  a  writer  whose  place 
in  literature  is  so  high  that  few  aspire  to 
read  him.  England  was  severing  her 
sympathies  sharply  from  much  which 
she  had  held  in  common  with  the  rest  of 
Europe,  when  Dryden  wrote :  "  They 
who  would  combat  general  authority 
with  particular  opinion  must  first  estab- 
blish  themselves  a  reputation  of  under 
standing  better  than  other  men." 


Travellers'  Tales 

*'  Wenten  forth  in  heore  wey  with  mony  wyse  tales, 
And  hedden  leve  to  lyen  al  heore  lyf  aftir." 

Piers  Plowman. 

I  DON'T  know  about  travellers'  "  hed 
den  leve"  to  lie,  but  that  they 
"  taken  leve "  no  one  can  doubt 
who  has  ever  followed  their  wandering 
footsteps.  They  say  the  most  charming 
and  audacious  things,  in  blessed  indif 
ference  to  the  fact  that  somebody  may 
possibly  believe  them.  They  start  strange 
hopes  and  longings  in  the  human  heart, 
and  they  pave  the  way  for  disappoint 
ments  and  disasters.  They  record  the 
impression  of  a  careless  hour  as  though 
it  were  the  experience  of  a  lifetime. 

There  is  a   delightful  little  book  on 
French  rivers,  written  some  years  ago  by 
a  vivacious  and  highly  imaginative  gen- 
141 


Americans  and  Others 

tleman  named  Molloy.  It  is  a  rose-tinted 
volume  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  so 
full  of  gay  adventures  that  it  would  lure 
a  mollusc  from  his  shell.  Every  town  and 
every  village  yields  some  fresh  delight, 
some  humorous  exploit  to  the  four  oars 
men  who  risk  their  lives  to  see  it ;  but 
the  few  pages  devoted  to  Amboise  are 
of  a  dulcet  and  irresistible  persuasive 
ness.  They  fill  the  reader's  soul  with  a 
haunting  desire  to  lay  down  his  well- 
worn  cares  and  pleasures,  to  say  good 
bye  to  home  and  kindred,  and  to  seek 
that  favoured  spot.  Touraine  is  full  of 
beauty,  and  steeped  to  the  lips  in  his 
toric  crimes.  Turn  where  we  may,  her 
fairness  charms  the  eye,  her  memories 
stir  the  heart.  But  Mr.  Molloy  claims  for 
Amboise  something  rarer  in  France  than 
loveliness  or  romance,  something  which 
no  French  town  has  ever  yet  been  known 
to  possess, — a  slumberous  and  soul-satis 
fying  silence.  "  We  dropped  under  the 
very  walls  of  the  Castle,"  he  writes, 
142 


Travellers'  Tales 

"  without  seeing  a  soul.  It  was  a  strange 
contrast  to  Blois  in  its  absolute  stillness. 
There  was  no  sound  but  the  noise  of 
waters  rushing  through  the  arches  of  the 
bridge.  It  might  have  been  the  palace 
of  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  but  was  only  one 
of  the  retrospective  cities  that  had  no 
concern  with  the  present.'' 

Quiet  brooded  over  the  ivied  towers 
and  ancient  water  front.  Tranquillity, 
unconcern,  a  gentle  and  courteous  aloof 
ness  surrounded  and  soothed  the  intre 
pid  travellers.  When,  in  the  early  morn 
ing,  the  crew  pushed  off  in  their  frail 
boat,  less  than  a  dozen  citizens  assembled 
to  watch  the  start.  Even  the  peril  of  the 
performance  (and  there  are  few  things 
more  likely  to  draw  a  crowd  than  the 
chance  of  seeing  four  fellow  mortals 
drown)  failed  to  awaken  curiosity.  Nine 
men  stood  silent  on  the  shore  when  the 
outrigger  shot  into  the  swirling  river, 
and  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  chronicler 
that  Amboise  "did  not  often  witness 
143 


Americans  and  Others 

such  a  gathering."  Nine  quiet  men  were, 
for  Amboise,  something  in  the  nature  of 
a  mob. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Mol- 
loy's  book  is  not  a  new  one ;  but  then 
Touraine  is  neither  new  nor  mutable. 
Nothing  changes  in  its  beautiful  old 
towns,  the  page  of  whose  history  has 
been  turned  for  centuries.  What  if  mo 
tors  now  whirl  in  a  white  dust  through  the 
heart  of  France?  They  do  not  affect  the 
lives  of  the  villages  through  which  they 
pass.  The  simple  and  primitive  desire  of 
the  motorist  is  to  be  fed  and  to  move  on, 
to  be  fed  again  and  to  move  on  again, 
to  sleep  and  to  start  afresh.  That  un 
avoidable  waiting  between  trains  which 
now  and  then  compelled  an  old-time 
tourist  to  look  at  a  cathedral  or  a  cha 
teau,  by  way  of  diverting  an  empty  hour, 
no  longer  retards  progress.  The  motor 
ist  needs  never  wait.  As  soon  as  he  has 
eaten,  he  can  go,  —  a  privilege  of  which 
he  gladly  avails  himself.  A  month  at 
144 


Travellers'  Tales 

Amboise  taught  us  that,  at  the  feeding- 
hour,  motors  came  flocking  like  fowls, 
and  then,  like  fowls,  dispersed.  They 
were  disagreeable  while  they  lasted,  but 
they  never  lasted  long.  Replete  with  a 
five-course  luncheon,  their  fagged  and 
grimy  occupants  sped  on  to  distant  towns 
and  dinner. 

But  why  should  we,  who  knew  well 
that  there  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a 
quiet  corner  in  all  France,  have  listened 
to  a  traveller's  tale,  and  believed  in  a 
silent  Amboise  ?  Is  there  no  limit  to  hu 
man  credulity?  Does  experience  count 
for  nothing  in  the  Bourbon-like  policy  of 
our  lives  ?  It  is  to  England  we  must  go  if 
we  seek  for  silence,  that  gentle,  pervas 
ive  silence  which  wraps  us  in  a  mantle 
of  content.  It  was  in  Porlock  that  Cole 
ridge  wrote  "  Kubla  Khan,"  transported, 
Heaven  knows  whither,  by  virtue  of 
the  hushed  repose  that  consecrates  the 
sleepiest  hamlet  in  Great  Britain.  It  was 
at  Stoke  Pogis  that  Gray  composed 
145 


Americans  and  Others 

his  "  Elegy."  He  could  never  have  writ 
ten — 

11  And  all  the  air  a  solemn  stillness  holds," 

in  the  vicinity  of  a  French  village. 

But  Amboise  !  Who  would  go  to  rural 
England,  live  on  ham  and  eggs,  and 
sleep  in  a  bed  harder  than  Pharaoh's 
heart,  if  it  were  possible  that  a  silent 
Amboise  awaited  him?  The  fair  fresh 
vegetables  of  France,  her  ripe  red  straw 
berries  and  glowing  cherries,  her  crisp 
salads  and  her  caressing  mattresses  lured 
us  no  less  than  the  vision  of  a  blood 
stained  castle,  and  the  wide  sweep  of  the 
Loire  flashing  through  the  joyous  land 
scape  of  Touraine.  In  the  matter  of 
beauty,  Amboise  outstrips  all  praise.  In 
the  matter  of  romance,  she  leaves  no 
thing  to  be  desired.  Her  splendid  old 
Chateau  —  half  palace  and  half  fortress 
—  towers  over  the  river  which  mirrors  its 
glory  and  perpetuates  its  shame.  She  is 
a  storehouse  of  historic  memories,  she  is 
146 


Travellers'  Tales 

the  loveliest  of  little  towns,  she  is  in  the 
heart  of  a  district  which  bears  the  finest 
fruit  and  has  the  best  cooks  in  France  ; 
but  she  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  silent, 
since  the  days  when  Louis  the  Eleventh 
was  crowned,  and  she  gave  wine  freely 
to  all  who  chose  to  be  drunk  and  merry 
at  her  charge. 

If  she  does  not  give  her  wine  to-day, 
she  sells  it  so  cheaply  —  lying  girt  by 
vine-clad  hills  —  that  many  of  her  sons 
are  drunk  and  merry  still.  The  sociable 
habit  of  setting  a  table  in  the  open  street 
prevails  at  Amboise.  Around  it  labour 
ers  take  their  evening  meal,  to  the  accom 
paniment  of  song  and  sunburnt  mirth.  It 
sounds  poetic  and  it  looks  picturesque, 
—  like  a  picture  by  Teniers  or  Jan  Steen, 
— but  it  is  not  a  habit  conducive  to  re 
pose. 

As  far  as  I  can  judge, —  after  a  month's 
experience,  —  the  one  thing  no  inhabit 
ant  of  Amboise  ever  does  is  to  go  to 
bed.  At  midnight  the  river  front  is  alive 
147 


Americans  and  Others 

with  cheerful  and  strident  voices.  The 
French  countryman  habitually  speaks  to 
his  neighbour  as  if  he  were  half  a  mile 
away  ;  and  when  a  score  of  countrymen 
are  conversing  in  this  key,  the  air  rings 
with  their  clamour.  They  sing  in  the 
same  lusty  fashion ;  not  through  closed 
lips,  as  is  the  custom  of  English  singers, 
but  rolling  out  the  notes  with  volcanic 
energy  from  the  deep  craters  of  their 
throats.  When  our  admirable  waiter — 
who  is  also  our  best  friend  —  frees  his 
soul  in  song  as  he  is  setting  the  table, 
the  walls  of  the  dining-room  quiver  and 
vibrate.  By  five  o'clock  in  the  morning 
every  one  except  ourselves  is  on  foot  and 
out  of  doors.  We  might  as  well  be,  for 
it  is  custom,  not  sleep,  which  keeps  us  in 
our  beds.  The  hay  wagons  are  rolling 
over  the  bridge,  the  farmhands  are  going 
to  work,  the  waiter,  in  an  easy  undress, 
is  exchanging  voluble  greetings  with  his 
many  acquaintances,  the  life  of  the  town 
has  begun. 


Travellers'  Tales 

The  ordinary  week-day  life,  I  mean, 
for  on  Sundays  the  market  people  have 
assembled  by  four,  and  there  are  nights 
when  the  noises  never  cease.  It  is  no  un 
usual  thing  to  be  awakened,  an  hour  or 
two  after  midnight,  by  a  tumult  so  loud 
and  deep  that  my  first  impression  is  one 
of  conspiracy  or  revolution.  The  sound 
is  not  unlike  the  hoarse  roar  of  Sir  Henry 
Irving's  admirably  trained  mobs,  —  the 
only  mobs  I  have  ever  heard, — and  I 
jump  out  of  bed,  wondering  if  the  Pre 
sident  has  been  shot,  or  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  blown  up  by  malcontents.  Can 
these  country  people  have  heard  the 
news,  as  the  shepherds  of  Peloponnesus 
heard  of  the  fall  of  Syracuse,  through  the 
gossiping  of  wood  devils,  and,  like  the 
shepherds,  have  hastened  to  carry  the  in 
telligence?  When  I  look  out  of  my  win 
dow,  the  crowd  seems  small  for  the  up 
roar  it  is  making.  Armand,  the  waiter, 
who,  I  am  convinced,  merely  dozes  on  a 
dining-room  chair,  so  as  to  be  in  readi- 
149 


Americans  and  Others 

ness  for  any  diversion,  stands  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  road,  gesticulating  with  fine 
dramatic  gestures.  I  cannot  hear  what  is 
being  said,  because  everybody  is  speak 
ing  at  once  ;  but  after  a  while  the  excite 
ment  dies  away,  and  the  group  slowly 
disperses,  shouting  final  vociferations 
from  out  of  the  surrounding  darkness. 
The  next  day  when  I  ask  the  cause  of 
the  disturbance,  Armand  looks  puzzled 
at  my  question.  He  does  not  seem  aware 
that  anything  out  of  the  way  has  hap 
pened  ;  but  finally  explains  that  "  quel- 
ques  amis"  were  passing  the  hotel,  and 
that  Madame  must  have  heard  them  stop 
and  talk.  The  incident  is  apparently  too 
common  an  occurrence  to  linger  in  his 
mind. 

As  for  the  Amboise  dogs,  I  do  not 
know  whether  they  really  possess  a  sup 
ernatural  strength  which  enables  them 
to  bark  twenty-four  hours  without  inter 
mission,  or  whether  they  divide  them 
selves  into  day  and  night  pickets,  so  that, 
150 


Travellers'  Tales 

when  one  band  retires  to  rest,  the  other 
takes  up  the  interrupted  duty.  The 
French  villager,  who  values  all  domestic 
pets  in  proportion  to  the  noise  they  can 
make,  delights  especially  in  his  dogs, 
giant  black-and-tan  terriers  for  the  most 
part,  of  indefatigable  perseverance  in 
their  one  line  of  activity.  Their  bark  is 
high-pitched  and  querulous  rather  than 
deep  and  defiant,  but  for  continuity  it 
has  no  rival  upon  earth.  Our  hotel  —  in 
all  other  respects  unexceptionable — pos 
sesses  two  large  bulldogs  which  have 
long  ago  lost  their  British  phlegm,  and 
acquired  the  agitated  yelp  of  their  Gallic 
neighbours.  They  could  not  be  quiet  if 
they  wanted  to,  for  heavy  sleigh-bells 
(unique  decorations  for  a  bulldog)  hang 
about  their  necks,  and  jangle  merrily  at 
every  step.  In  the  courtyard  lives  a  col 
ony  of  birds.  One  virulent  parrot  which 
shrieks  its  inarticulate  wrath  from  morn 
ing  until  night,  but  which  does  —  be  it 
remembered  to  its  credit—  go  to  sleep  at 


Americans  and  Others 

sundown ;  three  paroquets ;  two  cocka 
toos  of  ineffable  shrillness,  and  a  cageful 
of  canaries  and  captive  finches.  When 
taken  in  connection  with  the  dogs,  the 
hotel  cat,  the  operatic  Armand,  and  the 
cook  who  plays  "See,  O  Normal"  on 
his  flute  every  afternoon  and  evening,  it 
will  be  seen  that  Amboise  does  not  so 
closely  resemble  the  palace  of  the  Sleep 
ing  Beauty  as  Mr.  Molloy  has  given  us 
to  understand. 

All  other  sounds,  however,  melt  into  a 
harmonious  murmur  when  compared  to 
the  one  great  speciality  of  the  village,  — 
stone-cutting  in  the  open  streets.  When 
ever  one  of  the  picturesque  old  houses  is 
crumbling  into  utter  decay,  a  pile  of  stone 
is  dumped  before  it,  and  the  easy-going 
masons  of  Amboise  prepare  to  patch  up 
its  walls.  No  particular  method  is  ob 
served,  the  work  progresses  after  the 
fashion  of  a  child's  block  house,  and  the 
principal  labour  lies  in  dividing  the  lumps 
of  stone.  This  is  done  with  a  rusty  old 
152 


Travellers'  Tales 

saw  pulled  slowly  backward  and  forward 
by  two  men,  the  sound  produced  resem 
bling  a  succession  of  agonized  shrieks. 
It  goes  on  for  hours  and  hours,  with  no 
apparent  result  except  the  noise ;  while 
a  handsome  boy,  in  a  striped  blouse  and 
broad  blue  sash,  completes  the  discord 
by  currying  the  stone  with  an  iron  curry 
comb,  — a  process  I  have  never  witnessed 
before,  and  ardently  hope  never  to  wit 
ness  again.  If  one  could  imagine  fifty 
school-children  all  squeaking  their  slate 
pencils  down  their  slates  together, — who 
does  not  remember  that  blood-curdling 
music  of  his  youth? — one  might  gain 
some  feeble  notion  of  the  acute  agony 
induced  by  such  an  instrument  of  tor 
ture.  Agony  to  the  nervous  visitor  alone ; 
for  the  inhabitants  of  Amboise  love  their 
shrieking  saws  and  currycombs,  just  as 
they  love  their  shrieking  parrots  and 
cockatoos.  They  gather  in  happy  crowds 
to  watch  the  blue-sashed  boy,  and  drink 
in  the  noise  he  makes.  We  drink  it  in, 
153 


Americans  and  Others 

too,  as  he  is  immediately  beneath  our 
windows.  Then  we  look  at  the  castle 
walls  glowing  in  the  splendour  of  the 
sunset,  and  at  the  Loire  sweeping  in 
magnificent  curves  between  the  grey- 
green  poplar  trees  ;  at  the  noble  width  of 
the  horizon,  and  at  the  deepening  tints  of 
the  sky  ;  and  we  realize  that  a  silent  Am- 
boise  would  be  an  earthly  Paradise,  too 
fair  for  this  sinful  world. 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

"  Surtout,  pas  de  zfcle."  — TALLEYRAND. 

THERE  is  no  aloofness  so  forlorn 
as  our  aloofness  from  an  un- 
contagious  enthusiasm,  and 
there  is  no  hostility  so  sharp  as  that 
aroused  by  a  fervour  which  fails  of  re 
sponse.  Charles  Lamb's  "  D — n  him  at 
a  hazard,"  was  the  expression  of  a  nat 
ural  and  reasonable  frame  of  mind  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar,  and  which, 
though  admittedly  unlovely,  is  in  the  na 
ture  of  a  safeguard.  If  we  had  no  spirit 
ual  asbestos  to  protect  our  souls,  we 
should  be  consumed  to  no  purpose  by 
every  wanton  flame.  If  our  sincere  and 
restful  indifference  to  things  which  con 
cern  us  not  were  shaken  by  every  blast, 
we  should  have  no  available  force  for 
155 


Americans  and  Others 

things  which  concern  us  deeply.  If  elo 
quence  did  not  sometimes  make  us  yawn, 
we  should  be  besotted  by  oratory.  And 
if  we  did  not  approach  new  acquaint 
ances,  new  authors,  and  new  points  of 
view  with  life-saving  reluctance,  we 
should  never  feel  that  vital  regard  which, 
being  strong  enough  to  break  down  our 
barriers,  is  strong  enough  to  hold  us  for 
fife. 

V     The  worth  of  admiration  is,  after  all, 
lin  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  thing 
I  admired, —  a  circumstance  overlooked  by 
the  people  who  talk  much  pleasant  non 
sense  about  sympathy,  and  the  courage 
of  our  emotions,  and  the  open  and  gen 
erous  mind.  We  know  how  Mr.  Arnold 
felt  when  an  American  lady  wrote   to 
him,  in  praise  of  American  authors,  and 
said  that  it  rejoiced  her  heart  to  think  of 
such  excellence  as  being  "  common  and 
abundant."  Mr.  Arnold,  who  considered 
that  excellence  of  any  kind  was  very  un 
common  and  beyond  measure  rare,  ex- 
156 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

pressed  his  views  on  this  occasion  with 
more  fervour  and  publicity  than  the  cir 
cumstances  demanded ;  but  his  words 
are  as  balm  to  the  irritation  which  some 
of  us  suffer  and  conceal  when  drained  of 
our  reluctant  applause. 

It  is  perhaps  because  women  have  been 
trained  to  a  receptive  attitude  of  mind, 
because  for  centuries  they  have  been 
valued  for  their  sympathy  and  apprecia 
tion  rather  than  for  their  judgment,  that 
they  are  so  perilously  prone  to  enthusi 
asm.  It  has  come  to  all  of  us  of  late  to 
hear  much  feminine  eloquence,  and  to 
marvel  at  the  nimbleness  of  woman's  wit, 
at  the  speed  with  which  she  thinks,  and 
the  facility  with  which  she  expresses  her 
thoughts.  A  woman  who,  until  five  years 
ago,  never  addressed  a  larger  audience 
than  that  afforded  by  a  reading-club  or 
a  dinner-party,  will  now  thrust  and  parry 
on  a  platform,  wholly  unembarrassed  by 
timidity  or  by  ignorance.  Sentiment  and 
satire  are  hers  to  command ;  and  while 
157 


Americans  and  Others 

neither  is  convincing,  both  are  tremen 
dously  effective  with  people  already  con 
vinced,  with  the  partisans  who  throng 
unwearyingly  to  hear  the  voicing  of  their 
own  opinions.  The  ease  with  which  such 
a  speaker  brings  forward  the  great  cen 
tral  fact  of  the  universe,  maternity,  as 
an  argument  for  or  against  the  casting 
of  a  ballot  (it  works  just  as  well  either 
way) ;  the  glow  with  which  she  associ 
ates  Jeanne  d'Arc  with  federated  clubs 
and  social  service ;  and  the  gay  defi 
ance  she  hurls  at  customs  and  preju 
dices  so  profoundly  obsolete  that  the 
lantern  of  Diogenes  could  not  find  them 
lurking  in  a  village  street,  — these  things 
may  chill  the  unemotional  listener  into 
apathy,  but  they  never  fail  to  awaken  the 
sensibilities  of  an  audience.  The  simple 
process,  so  highly  commended  by  de 
baters,  of  ignoring  all  that  cannot  be 
denied,  makes  demonstration  easy.  "  A 
crowd,"  said  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  thinks  by  in 
fection."  To  be  immune  from  infection  is 
158 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

to  stand  outside  the  sacred  circle  of  en 
thusiasts. 

Yet  if  the  experience  of  mankind 
teaches  anything,  it  is  that  vital  convic 
tions  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  eloquence. 
The  "  oratory  of  conviction,"  to  borrow 
a  phrase  of  Mr.  Bagehot's,  is  so  rare  as 
to  be  hardly  worth  taking  into  account. 
Fox  used  to  say  that  if  a  speech  read 
well,  it  was  "  a  damned  bad  speech," 
which  is  the  final  word  of  cynicism, 
spoken  by  one  who  knew.  It  was  the  sav 
ing  sense  of  England,  that  solid,  prosaic, 
dependable  common  sense,  the  bulwark 
of  every  great  nation,  which,  after  Sheri 
dan's  famous  speech,  demanding  the  im 
peachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  made 
the  House  adjourn  "to  collect  its  rea 
son,"  —  obviously  because  its  reason 
had  been  lost.  Sir  William  Dolden,  who 
moved  the  adjournment,  frankly  con 
fessed  that  it  was  impossible  to  give  a 
"determinate  opinion"  while  under  the 
spell  of  oratory.  So  the  lawmakers,  who 
159 


Americans  and  Others 

had  been  fired  to  white  heat,  retired  to 
cool  down  again;  and  when  Sheridan  — 
always  as  deep  in  difficulties  as  Micawber 
— was  offered  a  thousand  pounds  for  the 
manuscript  of  the  speech,  he  remembered 
Fox's  verdict,  and  refused  to  risk  his  un 
ballasted  eloquence  in  print. 

Enthusiasm  is  praised  because  it  im 
plies  an  unselfish  concern  for  something 
outside  our  personal  interest  and  ad 
vancement.  It  is  reverenced  because  the 
great  and  wise  amendments,  which  from 
time  to  time  straighten  the  roads  we  walk, 
may  always  be  traced  back  to  somebody's 
zeal  for  reform.  It  is  rich  in  prophetic 
attributes,  banking  largely  on  the  un 
known,  and  making  up  in  nobility  of  de 
sign  what  it  lacks  in  excellence  of  attain 
ment.  Like  simplicity,  and  candour,  and 
other  much-commended  qualities,  enthu 
siasm  is  charming  until  we  meet  it  face 
to  face,  and  cannot  escape  from  its  charm. 
It  is  then  that  we  begin  to  understand 
the  attitude  of  Goethe,  and  Talleyrand, 
1 60 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

and  Pitt,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  saved 
themselves  from  being  consumed  by  res 
olutely  refusing  to  ignite.  "  It  is  folly," 
observed  Goethe,  "  to  expect  that  other 
men  will  consent  to  believe  as  we  do  "  ; 
and,  having  reconciled  himself  to  this  el 
emental  obstinacy  of  the  human  heart,  it 
no  longer  troubled  him  that  those  whom 
he  felt  to  be  wrong  should  refuse  to  ac 
knowledge  their  errors. 

There  are  men  and  women  —  not  many 
—  who  have  the  happy  art  of  making 
their  most  fervent  convictions  endurable. 
Their  hobbies  do  not  spread  desolation 
over  the  social  world,  their  prejudices  do 
not  insult  our  intelligence.  They  may  be 
so  "  abreast  with  the  times  "  that  we  can 
not  keep  track  of  them,  or  they  may  be 
basking  serenely  in  some  Early  Victo 
rian  close.  They  may  believe  buoyantly 
in  the  Baconian  cipher,  or  in  thought 
transference,  or  in  the  serious  purposes 
of  Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw,  or  in  any 
thing  else  which  invites  credulity.  They 
161 


Americans  and  Others 

may  even  express  their  views,  and  still 
be  loved  and  cherished  by  their  friends. 
*How  illuminating  is  the  contrast  which 
Hazlitt  unconsciously  draws  between  the 
enthusiasms  of  Lamb  which  everybody 
was  able  to  bear,  and  the  enthusiasms  of 
Coleridge  which  nobody  was  able  to  bear. 
Lamb  would  parade  his  admiration  for 
some  favourite  author,  Donne,  for  exam 
ple,  whom  the  rest  of  the  company  pro 
bably  abhorred.  He  would  select  the 
most  crabbed  passages  to  quote  and  de 
fend  ;  he  would  stammer  out  his  piquant 
and  masterful  half  sentences,  his  scald 
ing  jests,  his  controvertible  assertions  ; 
he  would  skilfully  hint  at  the  defects 
which  no  one  else  was  permitted  to  see ; 
and  if  he  made  no  converts  (wanting 
none),  he  woke  no  weary  wrath.  But  we 
all  have  a  sneaking  sympathy  for  Hoi- 
croft,  who,  when  Coleridge  was  expatiat 
ing  rapturously  and  oppressively  upon 
the  glories  of  German  transcendental 
philosophy,  and  upon  his  own  supreme 
162 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

command  of  the  field,  cried  out  suddenly 
and  with  exceeding  bitterness :  "  Mr. 

* 

Coleridge,  you  are  the  most  eloquent 
man  I  ever  met,  and  the  most  unbear 
able  in  your  eloquence." 

I  am  not  without  a  lurking  suspicion 
that  George  Borrow  must  have  been  at 
times  unbearable  in  his  eloquence.  "  We 
cannot  refuse  to  meet  a  man  on  the 
ground  that  he  is  an  enthusiast,"  ob 
serves  Mr.  George  Street,  obviously  la 
menting  this  circumstance ;  "  but  we 
should  at  least  like  to  make  sure  that  his 
enthusiasms  are  under  control."  Bor- 
row's  enthusiasms  were  never  under  con 
trol.  He  stood  ready  at  a  moment's  no 
tice  to  prove  the  superiority  of  the  Welsh 
bards  over  the  paltry  poets  of  England, 
or  to  relate  the  marvellous  Welsh  pro 
phecies,  so  vague  as  to  be  always  safe. 
He  was  capable  of  inflicting  Armenian 
verbs  upon  Isopel  Berners  when  they  sat 
at  night  over  their  gipsy  kettle  in  the  din 
gle  (let  us  hope  she  fell  asleep  as  sweetly 
163 


Americans  and  Others 

as  does  Milton's  Eve  when  Adam  grows 
too  garrulous) ;  and  he  met  the  com 
plaints  of  a  poor  farmer  on  the  hardness 
of  the  times  with  jubilant  praises  of  evan 
gelicalism.  "  Better  pay  three  pounds  an 
acre,  and  live  on  crusts  and  water  in  the 
present  enlightened  days,"  he  told  the 
disheartened  husbandman,  "than  pay 
two  shillings  an  acre,  and  sit  down  to 
beef  and  ale  three  times  a  day  in  the  old 
superstitious  ages."  This  is  not  the  ora 
tory  of  conviction.  There  are  unreason 
ing  prejudices  in  favour  of  one's  own 
stomach  which  eloquence  cannot  gain 
say.  "  I  defy  the  utmost  power  of  lan 
guage  to  disgust  me  wi'  a  gude  denner," 
observes  the  Ettrick  Shepherd ;  thus  put 
ting  on  record  the  attitude  of  the  bu 
colic  mind,  impassive,  immutable,  since 
earth's  first  harvests  were  gleaned. 

The  artificial  emotions  which  expand 

under  provocation,  and  collapse  when  the 

provocation  is  withdrawn,  must  be  held 

responsible  for  much  mental  confusion. 

164 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

Election  oratory  is  an  old  and  cherished 
institution.  It  is  designed  to  make  candi 
dates  show  their  paces,  and  to  give  inno 
cent  amusement  to  the  crowd.  Properly 
reinforced  by  brass  bands  and  bunting, 
graced  by  some  sufficiently  august  pres 
ence,  and  enlivened  by  plenty  of  cheering 
and  hat-flourishing,  it  presents  a  strong 
appeal.  A  political  party  is,  moreover,  a 
solid  and  self-sustaining  affair.  All  sound 
and  alliterative  generalities  about  virile 
and  vigorous  manhood,  honest  and  hon 
ourable  labour,  great  and  glorious  causes, 
are  understood,  in  this  country  at  least, 
to  refer  to  the  virile  and  vigorous  man 
hood  of  Republicans  or  Democrats,  as  the 
case  may  be ;  and  to  uphold  the  honest 
and  honourable,  great  and  glorious  Re 
publican  or  Democratic  principles,  upon 
which,  it  is  also  understood,  depends  the 
welfare  of  the  nation. 

Yet  even  this  sense  of  security  cannot 
always  save  us  from  the  chill  of  collapsed 
enthusiasm.  I  was  once  at  a  great  mass 
165 


Americans  and  Others 

meeting",  held  in  the  interests  of  munici 
pal  reform,  and  at  which  the  principal 
speaker  was  a  candidate  for  office.  He 
was  delayed  for  a  full  hour  after  the 
meeting  had  been  opened,  and  this  hour 
was  filled  with  good  platform  oratory. 
Speechmaker  after  speechmaker,  all 
adepts  in  their  art,  laid  bare  before  our 
eyes  the  evils  which  consumed  us,  and 
called  upon  us  passionately  to  support 
the  candidate  who  would  lift  us  from  our 
shame.  The  fervour  of  the  house  rose 
higher  and  higher.  Martial  music  stirred 
our  blood,  and  made  us  feel  that  reform 
and  patriotism  were  one.  The  atmosphere 
grew  tense  with  expectancy,  when  sud 
denly  there  came  a  great  shout,  and  the 
sound  of  cheering  from  the  crowd  in  the 
streets,  the  crowd  which  could  not  force 
its  way  into  the  huge  and  closely  packed 
opera  house.  Now  there  are  few  things 
more  profoundly  affecting  than  cheers 
heard  from  a  distance,  or  muffled  by  in 
tervening  walls.  They  have  a  fine  dra- 
166 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

matic  quality,  unknown  to  the  cheers 
which  rend  the  air  about  us.  When  the 
chairman  of  the  meeting  announced  that 
the  candidate  was  outside  the  doors, 
speaking  to  the  mob,  the  excitement 
reached  fever  heat.  When  some  one 
cried,  "  He  is  here  I"  and  the  orchestra 
struck  the  first  bars  of  "  Hail  Columbia," 
we  rose  to  our  feet,  waving  multitudinous 
flags,  and  shouting  out  the  rapture  of  our 
hearts. 

And  then,  —  and  then  there  stepped 
upon  the  stage  a  plain,  tired,  bewildered 
man,  betraying  nervous  exhaustion  in 
every  line.  He  spoke,  and  his  voice 
was  not  the  assured  voice  of  a  leader. 
His  words  were  not  the  happy  words 
which  instantly  command  attention.  It 
was  evident  to  the  discerning  eye  that 
he  had  been  driven  for  days,  perhaps 
for  weeks,  beyond  his  strength  and  en 
durance  ;  that  he  had  resorted  to  stim 
ulants  to  help  him  in  this  emergency, 
and  that  they  had  failed;  that  he  was 
167 


Americans  and  Others 

striving  with  feeble  desperation  to  do  the 
impossible  which  was  expected  of  him.  I 
wondered  even  then  if  a  few  common 
words  of  explanation,  a  few  sober  words 
of  promise,  would  not  have  satisfied  the 
crowd,  already  sated  with  eloquence.  I 
wondered  if  the  unfortunate  man  could 
feel  the  chill  settling  down  upon  the 
house  as  he  spoke  his  random  and  un 
dignified  sentences,  whether  he  could  see 
the  first  stragglers  slipping  down  the 
aisles.  What  did  his  decent  record,  his 
honest  purpose,  avail  him  in  an  hour  like 
this  ?  He  tried  to  lash  himself  to  vigour, 
but  it  was  spurring  a  broken-winded 
horse.  The  stragglers  increased  into  a 
flying  squadron,  the  house  was  emptying 
fast,  when  the  chairman  in  sheer  desper 
ation  made  a  sign  to  the  leader  of  the 
orchestra,  who  waved  his  baton,  and  "The 
Star-Spangled  Banner"  drowned  the  can 
didate's  last  words,  and  brought  what 
was  left  of  the  audience  to  its  feet.  I 
turned  to  a  friend  beside  me,  the  wife  of 
168 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

a  local  politician  who  had  been  the  most 
fiery  speaker  of  the  evening.  "  Will  it 
make  any  difference  ?  "  I  asked,  and  she 
answered  disconsolately;  "The  city  is 
lost,  but  we  may  save  the  state." 

Then  we  went  out  into  the  quiet 
streets,  and  I  bethought  me  of  Voltaire's 
driving  in  a  blue  coach  powdered  with 
gilt  stars  to  see  the  first  production  of 
"  Ir£ne,"  and  of  his  leaving  the  theatre 
to  find  that  enthusiasts  had  cut  the  traces 
of  his  horses,  so  that  the  shouting  mob 
might  drag  him  home  in  triumph.  But 
the  mob,  having  done  its  shouting,  melted 
away  after  the  irresponsible  fashion  of 
mobs,  leaving  the  blue  coach  stranded 
in  front  of  the  Tuileries,  with  Voltaire 
shivering  inside  of  it,  until  the  horses 
could  be  brought  back,  the  traces  patched 
up,  and  the  driver  recalled  to  his  duty. 

That  "  popular  enthusiasm  is  but  a 
fire  of  straw  "  has  been  amply  demon 
strated  by  all  who  have  tried  to  keep  it 
going.  It  can  be  lighted  to  some  pur- 
169 


Americans  and  Others 

pose,  as  when  money  is  extracted  from 
the  enthusiasts  before  they  have  had 
time  to  cool ;  but  even  this  process  —  so 
skilfully  conducted  by  the  initiated  - 
seems  unworthy  of  great  and  noble  char 
ities,  or  of  great  and  noble  causes.  It  is 
true  also  that  the  agitator  —  no  matter 
what  he  may  be  agitating  —  is  always 
sure  of  his  market;  a  circumstance  which 
made  that  most  conservative  of  chancel 
lors,  Lord  Eldon,  swear  with  bitter  oaths 
that,  if  he  were  to  begin  life  over  again, 
he  would  begin  it  as  an  agitator.  Tom 
Moore  tells  a  pleasant  story  (one  of  the 
many  pleasant  stories  embalmed  in  his 
vast  sarcophagus  of  a  diary)  about  a 
street  orator  whom  he  heard  address  a 
crowd  in  Dublin.  The  man's  eloquence 
was  so  stirring  that  Moore  was  ravished 
by  it,  and  he  expressed  to  Sheil  his  ad 
miration  for  the  speaker.  "Ah,"  said 
Sheil  carelessly,  "  that  was  a  brewer's 
patriot.  Most  of  the  great  brewers  have 
in  their  employ  a  regular  patriot  who 
170 


The  Chill  of  Enthusiasm 

goes  about  among  the  publicans,  talking 
violent  politics,  which  helps  to  sell  the 
beer." 

Honest  enthusiasm,  we  are  often  told,  is 
the  power  which  moves  the  world.  There 
fore  it  is  perhaps  that  honest  enthusiasts 
seem  to  think  that  if  they  stopped  push 
ing,  the  world  would  stop  moving,  —  as 
though  it  were  a  new  world  which  did  n't 
know  its  way.  This  belief  inclines  them 
to  intolerance.  The  more  keen  they  are, 
the  more  contemptuous  they  become. 
What  Wordsworth  admirably  called 
"  the  self-applauding  sincerity  of  a  heated 
mind"  leaves  them  no  loophole  for  doubt, 
and  no  understanding  of  the  doubter.  In 
their  volcanic  progress  they  bowl  over 
the  non-partisan  —  a  man  and  a  brother 
—  with  splendid  unconcern.  He,  poor 
soul,  stunned  but  not  convinced,  clings 
desperately  to  some  pettifogging  con 
victions  which  he  calls  truth,  and  refuses 
a  clearer  vision.  His  habit  of  remember 
ing  what  he  believed  yesterday  clogs  his 
171 


Americans  and  Others 

mind,  and  makes  it  hard  for  him  to 
believe  something  entirely  new  to-day. 
Much  has  been  said  about  the  incon 
venience  of  keeping  opinions,  but  much 
might  be  said  about  the  serenity  of  the 
process.  Old  opinions  are  like  old  friends, 
—  we  cease  to  question  their  worth  be 
cause,  after  years  of  intimacy  and  the 
loss  of  some  valuable  illusions,  we  have 
grown  to  place  our  slow  reliance  on  them. 
We  know  at  least  where  we  stand,  and 
whither  we  are  tending,  and  we  refuse 
to  bustle  feverishly  about  the  circumfer 
ence  of  life,  because,  as  Amiel  warns  us, 
we  cannot  reach  its  core. 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

"  My  Love  in  her  attire  doth  shew  her  wit." 

IT  is  an  old  and  honoured  jest  that 
Eve  —  type  of  eternal  womanhood 
— sacrified  the  peace  of  Eden  for 
the  pleasures  of  dress.  We  see  this  jest 
reflected  in  the  satire  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
in  the  bitter  gibes  of  mummer  and  buf 
foon.  We  can  hear  its  echoes  in  the  in 
vectives  of  the  reformer,  —  "I  doubt," 
said  a  good  fifteenth-century  bishop  to 
the  ladies  of  England  in  their  horned 
caps, —  "I  doubt  the  Devil  sit  not  be 
tween  those  horns."  We  find  it  illustrated 
with  admirable  naivete  in  the  tapestries 
which  hang  in  the  entrance  corridor  of 
the  Belle  Arti  in  Florence. 

These  tapestries  tell  the  downfall  of  our 
first  parents.   In  one  we  see  the  newly  cre 
ated  and  lovely  Eve  standing  by  the  side 
173 


Americans  and  Others 

of  the  sleeping  Adam,  and  regarding  him 
with  pleasurable  anticipation.  Another 
shows  us  the  animals  marching  in  line  to 
be  inspected  and  named.  The  snail  heads 
the  procession  and  sets  the  pace.  The  lion 
and  the  tiger  stroll  gossiping  together. 
The  unicorn  walks  alone,  very  stiff  and 
proud.  Two  rats  and  two  mice  are  closely 
followed  by  two  sleek  cats,  who  keep 
them  well  covered,  and  plainly  await  the 
time  when  Eve's  amiable  indiscretion 
shall  assign  them  their  natural  prey.  In 
the  third  tapestry  the  deed  has  been  done, 
the  apple  had  been  eaten.  The  beasts  are 
ravening  in  the  background.  Adam,  al 
ready  clad,  is  engaged  in  fastening  a  pic 
turesque  girdle  of  leaves  around  the  un 
repentant  Eve,  —  for  all  the  world  like 
a  modern  husband  fastening  his  wife's 
gown,  —  while  she  for  the  first  time  gath 
ers  up  her  long  fair  hair.  Her  attitude 
is  full  of  innocent  yet  indescribable  co 
quetry.  The  passion  for  self-adornment 
had  already  taken  possession  of  her  soul. 
174 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

Before  her  lies  a  future  of  many  cares 
and  some  compensations.  She  is  going  to 
work  and  she  is  going  to  weep,  but  she 
is  also  going  to  dress.  The  price  was 
hers  to  pay. 

In  the  hearts  of  Eve's  daughters  lies 
an  unspoken  convincement  that  the 
price  was  not  too  dear.  As  far  as  fem 
inity  is  known,  or  can  ever  be  known,  one 
dominant  impulse  has  never  wavered  or 
weakened.  In  every  period  of  the  world's 
history,  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  in 
every  stage  of  savagery  or  civilization, 
this  elementary  instinct  has  held,  and 
still  holds  good.  The  history  of  the  world 
is  largely  the  history  of  dress.  It  is  the 
most  illuminating  of  records,  and  tells  its 
tale  with  a  candour  and  completeness 
which  no  chronicle  can  surpass.  We  all 
agree  in  saying  that  people  who  reached 
a  high  stage  of  artistic  development,  like 
the  Greeks  and  the  Italians  of  the  Renais 
sance,  expressed  this  sense  of  perfection 
in  their  attire ;  but  what  we  do  not  ac- 
175 


Americans  and  Others 

knowledge  so  frankly  is  that  these  same 
nations  encouraged  the  beauty  of  dress, 
even  at  a  ruthless  cost,  because  they  felt 
that  in  doing  so  they  cooperated  with  a 
great  natural  law, — the  law  which  makes 
the  "wanton  lapwing"  get  himself  an 
other  crest.  They  played  into  nature's 
hands. 

The  nations  which  sought  to  bully 
nature,  like  the  Spartans  and  the  Span 
iards,  passed  the  severest  sumptuary 
laws ;  and  for  proving  the  power  of  fun 
damental  forces  over  the  unprofitable 
wisdom  of  reformers,  there  is  nothing 
like  a  sumptuary  law.  In  1563  Spanish 
women  of  good  repute  were  forbidden  to 
wear  jewels  or  embroideries,  —  the  result 
being  that  many  preferred  to  be  thought 
reputationless,  rather  than  abandon  their 
finery.  Some  years  later  it  was  ordained 
that  only  women  of  loose  life  should  be 
permitted  to  bare  their  shoulders ;  and 
all  dressmakers  who  furnished  the  inter 
dicted  gowns  to  others  than  courtesans 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

were  condemned  to  four  years'  penal 
servitude.  These  were  stern  measures, 
—  "  root  and  branch  "  was  ever  the  Span 
iard's  cry ;  but  he  found  it  easier  to 
stamp  out  heresy  than  to  eradicate  from 
a  woman's  heart  something  which  is 
called  vanity,  but  which  is,  in  truth,  an 
overmastering  impulse  which  she  is  too 
wise  to  endeavour  to  resist. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  a  sumptuary 
law  which  incited  the  women  of  Rome  to 
make  their  first  great  public  demonstra 
tion,  and  to  besiege  the  Forum  as  belliger 
ently  as  the  women  of  England  have, 
in  late  years,  besieged  Parliament.  The 
Senate  had  thought  fit  to  save  money 
for  the  second  Punic  War  by  curtailing 
all  extravagance  in  dress ;  and,  when  the 
war  was  over,  showed  no  disposition  to 
repeal  a  statute  which  —  to  the  simple 
masculine  mind  —  seemed  productive  of 
nothing  but  good.  Therefore  the  women 
gathered  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  demand 
ing  the  restitution  of  their  ornaments, 
177 


Americans  and  Others 

and  deeply  scandalizing  poor  Cato,  who 
could  hardly  wedge  his  way  through  the 
crowd.  His  views  on  this  occasion  were 
expressed  with  the  bewildered  bitterness 
of  a  modern  British  conservative.  He 
sighed  for  the  good  old  days  when  women 
were  under  the  strict  control  of  their  fa 
thers  and  husbands,  and  he  very  plainly 
told  the  Senators  that  if  they  had  main 
tained  their  proper  authority  at  home, 
their  wives  and  daughters  would  not  then 
be  misbehaving  themselves  in  public. 
"  It  was  not  without  painful  emotions  of 
shame,"  said  this  outraged  Roman  gen 
tleman,  "  that  I  just  now  made  my  way 
to  the  Forum  through  a  herd  of  women. 
Our  ancestors  thought  it  improper  that 
wTomen  should  transact  any  private  bus 
iness  without  a  director.  We,  it  seems, 
suffer  them  to  interfere  in  the  manage 
ment  of  state  affairs,  and  to  intrude  into 
the  general  assemblies.  Had  I  not  been 
restrained  by  the  modesty  and  dignity 
of  some  among  them,  had  I  not  been  un- 
178 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

willing  that  they  should  be  rebuked  by 
a  Consul,  I  should  have  said  to  them : 
'  What  sort  of  practice  is  this  of  running 
into  the  streets,  and  addressing  other 
women's  husbands  ?  Could  you  not  have 
petitioned  at  home  ?  Are  your  blandish 
ments  more  seductive  in  public  than  in 
private,  and  with  other  husbands  than 
your  own?" 

How  natural  it  all  sounds,  how  mod 
ern,  how  familiar !  And  with  what  know 
ledge  of  the  immutable  laws  of  nature, 
as  opposed  to  the  capricious  laws  of  man, 
did  Lucius  Valerius  defend  the  rebellious 
women  of  Rome !  "  Elegance  of  ap 
parel,"  he  pleaded  before  the  Senate, 
"and  jewels,  and  ornaments,  — these  are 
a  woman's  badges  of  distinction  ;  in  these 
she  glories  and  delights ;  these  our  an 
cestors  called  the  woman's  world.  What 
else  does  she  lay  aside  in  mourning  save 
her  purple  and  gold?  What  else  does 
she  resume  when  the  mourning  is  over  ? 
How  does  she  manifest  her  sympathy  on 
179 


Americans  and  Others 

occasions  of  public  rejoicing,  but  by  add 
ing  to  the  splendour  of  her  dress?"  * 

Of  course  the  statute  was  repealed. 
The  only  sumptuary  laws  which  defied 
resistance  were  those  which  draped  the 
Venetian  gondolas  and  the  Milanese 
priests  in  black,  and  with  such  restric 
tions  women  had  no  concern. 

The  symbolism  of  dress  is  a  subject 
which  has  never  received  its  due  share 
of  attention,  yet  it  stands  for  attributes 
in  the  human  race  which  otherwise  defy 
analysis.  It  is  interwoven  with  all  our 
carnal  and  with  all  our  spiritual  instincts. 
It  represents  a  cunning  triumph  over 
hard  conditions,  a  turning  of  needs  into 
victories.  It  voices  desires  and  dignities 
without  number,  it  subjects  the  import 
ance  of  the  thing  done  to  the  importance 
of  the  manner  of  doing  it.  "  Man  wears 
a  special  dress  to  kill,  to  govern,  to  judge, 
to  preach,  to  mourn,  to  play.  In  every 
age  the  fashion  in  which  he  retains  or 

'  Livy. 
1 80 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

discards  some  portion  of  this  dress  de 
notes  a  subtle  change  in  his  feelings." 
All  visible  things  are  emblematic  of  in 
visible  forces.  Man  fixed  the  association 
of  colours  with  grief  and  gladness,  he 
made  ornaments  the  insignia  of  office, 
he  ordained  that  fabric  should  grace  the 
majesty  of  power. 

Yet  though  we  know  this  well,  it  is  our 
careless  custom  to  talk  about  dress,  and 
to  write  about  dress,  as  if  it  had  no  mean 
ing  at  all ;  as  if  the  breaking  waves  of 
fashion  which  carry  with  them  the  record 
of  pride  and  gentleness,  of  distinction 
and  folly,  of  the  rising  and  shattering  of 
ideals,  —  "  the  cut  which  betokens  intel 
lect  and  talent,  the  colour  which  betok 
ens  temper  and  heart," — were  guided 
by  no  other  law  than  chance,  were  a  mere 
purposeless  tyranny.  Historians  dwell 
upon  the  mad  excesses  of  ruff  and  farth 
ingale,  of  pointed  shoe  and  swelling  skirt, 
as  if  these  things  stood  for  nothing  in  a 
society  forever  alternating  between  rigid 
181 


Americans  and  Others 

formalism  and  the  irrepressible  spirit  of 
democracy. 

Is  it  possible  to  look  at  a  single  cos 
tume  painted  by  Velasquez  without 
realizing  that  the  Spanish  court  under 
Philip  the  Fourth  had  lost  the  mo 
bility  which  has  characterized  it  in  the 
days  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  had 
hardened  into  a  formalism,  replete  with 
dignity,  but  lacking  intelligence,  and  out 
of  touch  with  the  great  social  issues  of 
the  day  ?  French  chroniclers  have  written 
page  after  page  of  description  —  aimless 
and  tiresome  description,  for  the  most 
part  —  of  those  amazing  head-dresses 
which,  at  the  court  of  Marie  Antoinette, 
rose  to  such  heights  that  the  ladies  looked 
as  if  their  heads  were  in  the  middle  of 
their  bodies.  They  stood  seven  feet  high 
when  their  hair  was  dressed,  and  a  trifle 
over  five  when  it  was  n't.  The  Duchesse 
de  Lauzun  wore  upon  one  memorable 
occasion  a  head-dress  presenting  a  land 
scape  in  high  relief  on  the  shore  of  a 
182 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

stormy  lake,  ducks  swimming  on  the 
lake,  a  sportsman  shooting  at  the  ducks, 
a  mill  which  rose  from  the  crown  of  her 
head,  a  miller's  wife  courted  by  an  abbe, 
and  a  miller  placidly  driving  his  donkey 
down  the  steep  incline  over  the  lady's 
left  ear. 

It  sounds  like  a  Christmas  pantomime ; 
but  when  we  remember  that  the  French 
court,  that  model  of  patrician  pride,  was 
playing  with  democracy,  with  republican 
ism,  with  the  simple  life,  as  presented  by 
Rousseau  to  its  consideration,  we  see 
plainly  enough  how  the  real  self-suf 
ficiency  of  caste  and  the  purely  artificial 
sentiment  of  the  day  found  expression  in 
absurdities  of  costume.  Women  dared 
to  wear  such  things,  because,  being 
aristocrats,  they  felt  sure  of  themselves : 
and  they  professed  to  admire  them,  be 
cause,  being  engulfed  in  sentiment,  they 
had  lost  all  sense  of  proportion.  A  miller 
and  his  donkey  were  rustic  (Marie  An 
toinette  adored  rusticity) ;  an  abbe  flirt- 
183 


Americans  and  Others 

ing  with  a  miller's  wife  was  as  obviously 
artificial  as  Watteau.  It  would  have  been 
hard  to  find  a  happier  or  more  express 
ive  combination.  And  when  Rousseau 
and  republicanism  had  won  the  race,  we 
find  the  ladies  of  the  Directoire  illustrat 
ing  the  national  illusions  with  clinging 
and  diaphanous  draperies ;  and  asserting 
their  affinity  with  the  high  ideals  of  an 
cient  Greece  by  wearing  sandals  instead 
of  shoes,  and  rings  on  their  bare  white 
toes.  The  reaction  from  the  magnificent 
formalism  of  court  dress  to  this  abrupt 
nudity  is  in  itself  a  record  as  graphic  and 
as  illuminating  as  anything  that  histo 
rians  have  to  tell.  The  same  great  prin 
ciple  was  at  work  in  England  when  the 
Early  Victorian  virtues  asserted  their  su 
premacy,  when  the  fashionable  world,  be 
coming  for  a  spell  domestic  and  demure, 
expressed  these  qualities  in  smoothly 
banded  hair,  and  draperies  of  decorous 
amplitude.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  phase  of 
national  life  or  national  sentiment  which 
184 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

has  not  betrayed  itself  to  the  world  in 
dress. 

And  not  national  life  only,  but  individ 
ual  life  as  well.  Clothes  are  more  than 
historical,  they  are  autobiographical. 
They  tell  their  story  in  broad  outlines 
and  in  minute  detail.  Was  it  for  nothing 
that  Charles  the  First  devised  that  rich 
and  sombre  costume  of  black  and  white 
from  which  he  never  sought  relief  ?  Was 
it  for  nothing  that  Garibaldi  wore  a  red 
shirt,  and  Napoleon  an  old  grey  coat? 
In  proof  that  these  things  stood  for  char 
acter  and  destiny,  we  have  but  to  look 
at  the  resolute  but  futile  attempt  which 
Charles  the  Second  made  to  follow  his 
father's  lead,  to  express  something  be 
yond  a  fluctuating  fashion  in  his  dress. 
In  1666  he  announced  to  his  Council  — 
which  was,  we  trust,  gratified  by  the  in 
telligence  —  that  he  intended  to  wear  one 
unaltered  costume  for  the  rest  of  his  days. 
A  month  later  he  donned  this  costume, 
the  distinguishing  features  of  which  were 
185 


Americans  and  Others 

a  long,  close-fitting,  black  waistcoat, 
pinked  with  white,  a  loose  embroidered 
surtout,  and  buskins.  The  court  followed 
his  example,  and  Charles  not  unnaturally 
complained  that  so  many  black  and  white 
waistcoats  made  him  feel  as  though  he 
were  surrounded  by  magpies.  So  the 
white  pinking  was  discarded,  and  plain 
black  velvet  waistcoats  substituted.  These 
were  neither  very  gay,  nor  very  becom 
ing  to  a  swarthy  monarch ;  and  the  never- 
to-be-altered  costume  lasted  less  than  two 
years,  to  the  great  relief  of  the  courtiers, 
especially  of  those  who  had  risked  betting 
with  the  king  himself  on  its  speedy  dis 
appearance.  Expressing  nothing  but  a 
caprice,  it  had  the  futility  and  the  im- 
permanence  of  all  caprices. 

Within  the  last  century,  men  have 
gradually,  and  it  would  seem  perman 
ently,  abandoned  the  effort  to  reveal  their 
personality  in  dress.  They  have  allowed 
themselves  to  be  committed  for  life  to  a 
costume  of  ruthless  utilitarianism,  which 
1 86 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

takes  no  count  of  physical  beauty,  or  of 
its  just  display.  Comfort,  convenience, 
and  sanitation  have  conspired  to  estab 
lish  a  rigidity  of  rule  never  seen  before, 
to  which  men  yield  a  docile  and  lamb 
like  obedience.  Robert  Burton's  ax 
iom,  "  Nothing  sooner  dejects  a  man 
than  clothes  out  of  fashion,"  is  as  true 
now  as  it  was  three  hundred  years  ago. 
Fashion  sways  the  shape  of  a  collar,  and 
the  infinitesimal  gradations  of  a  hat-brim; 
but  the  sense  of  fitness,  and  the  power  of 
interpreting  life,  which  ennobled  fashion 
in  Burton's  day,  have  disappeared  in  an 
enforced  monotony. 

Men  take  a  strange  perverted  pride  in 
this  mournful  sameness  of  attire,  —  de 
light  in  wearing  a  hat  like  every  other 
man's  hat,  are  content  that  it  should  be 
a  perfected  miracle  of  ugliness,  that  it 
should  be  hot,  that  it  should  be  heavy, 
that  it  should  be  disfiguring,  if  only  they 
can  make  sure  of  seeing  fifty,  or  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty,  other  hats  exactly  like  it 
187 


Americans  and  Others 

on  their  way  downtown.  So  absolute  is 
this  uniformity  that  the  late  Marquess  of 
Ailesbury  bore  all  his  life  a  reputation 
for  eccentricity,  which  seems  to  have  had 
no  other  foundation  than  the  fact  of  his 
wearing  hats,  or  rather  a  hat,  of  distinc 
tive  shape,  chosen  with  reference  to  his 
own  head  rather  than  to  the  heads  of 
some  odd  millions  of  fellow  citizens. 
The  story  is  told  of  his  standing  bare 
headed  in  a  hatter's  shop,  awaiting  the 
return  of  a  salesman  who  had  carried  off 
his  own  beloved  head-gear,  when  a  short 
sighted  bishop  entered,  and,  not  recog 
nizing  the  peer,  took  him  for  an  assistant, 
and  handed  him  his  hat,  asking  him  if 
he  had  any  exactly  like  it.  Lord  Ailes 
bury  turned  the  bishop's  hat  over  and 
over,  examined  it  carefully  inside  and 
out,  and  gave  it  back  again.  "  No,"  he 
said,  "  I  have  n't,  and  I  '11  be  damned  if 
I  'd  wear  it,  if  I  had." 

Even  before  the  establishment  of  the 
invincible  despotism  which  clothes  the 
188 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

gentlemen  of  Christendom  in  a  livery, 
we  find  the  masculine  mind  disposed  to 
severity  in  the  ruling  of  fashions.  Steele, 
for  example,  tells  us  the  shocking  story 
of  an  English  gentleman  who  would  per 
sist  in  wearing  a  broad  belt  with  a  hang 
er,  instead  of  the  light  sword  then  carried 
by  men  of  rank,  although  in  other  re 
spects  he  was  a  "  perfectly  well-bred  per 
son."  Steele  naturally  regarded  this  ac 
quaintance  with  deep  suspicion,  which 
was  justified  when,  twenty-two  years 
afterwards,  the  innovator  married  his 
cook-maid.  "Others  were  amazed  at 
this,"  writes  the  essayist,  "but  I  must 
confess  that  I  was  not.  I  had  always 
known  that  his  deviation  from  the  cos 
tume  of  a  gentleman  indicated  an  ill- 
balanced  mind." 

•Nouas  the  adoption  of  a  rigorous  and 
monotonous  utilitarianism  in  masculine 
attire  has  had  two  unlovely  results.  In 
the  first  place,  men,  since  they  ceased  to 
covet  beautiful  clothes  for  themselves, 


Americans  and  Others 

have  wasted  much  valuable  time  in  coun- 
>elling  and  censuring  women ;  and,  in 
he  second  place,  there  has  come,  with 
he  loss  of  their  fine  trappings,  a  corre- 
>ponding  loss  of  illusions  on  the  part  of 
he  women  who  look  at   them.    Black 
Broadcloth  and  derby  hats  are  calculated 
/to  destroy  the  most  robust  illusions  in 
/  Christendom  ;  and  men  —  from  motives 
/    hard  to  fathom  —  have  refused  to  retain 
I    in  their  wardrobes  a  single  article  which 
\^can  amend  an  imperfect  ideal.  This  does 
not  imply  that  women  fail  to  value  friends 
in  black  broadcloth,  nor  that  they  refuse 
their  affections  to  lovers  and  husbands 
in  derby  hats.  Nature  is  not  to  be  balked 
by  such   impediments.    But  as  long  as 
men  wore  costumes  which  interpreted 
their   strength,  enhanced  their   persua 
siveness,  and  concealed  their  shortcom 
ings,  women  accepted  their  dominance 
without  demur.  They  made  no  idle  claim 
to  equality  with  creatures,  not  only  big 
ger  and  stronger,  not  only  more  capable 
190 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

and  more  resolute,  not  only  wiser  and 
more  experienced,  but  more  noble  and 
distinguished  in  appearance  than  they 
were  themselves.  What  if  the  assertive 
attitude  of  the  modern  woman,  her  easy 
arrogance,  and  the  confidence  she  places 
in  her  own  untried  powers,  may  be  ac 
counted  for  by  the  dispiriting  clothes 
which  men  have  determined  to  wear,  and 
the  wearing  of  which  may  have  cost 
them  no  small  portion  of  their  authority  ? 
The  whole  attitude  of  women  in  this 
regard  is  fraught  with  significance.  Men 
have  rashly  discarded  those  details  of 
costume  which  enhanced  their  comeli 
ness  and  charm  (we  have  but  to  look  at 
Van  Dyck's  portraits  to  see  how  much 
rare  distinction  is  traceable  to  subdued 
elegance  of  dress ) ;  but  women  have 
never  through  the  long  centuries  laid 
aside  the  pleasant  duty  of  self-adorn 
ment.  They  dare  not  if  they  would,  —  too 
much  is  at  stake;  and  they  experience 
the  just  delight  which  comes  from  coo 
191 


Americans  and  Others 

eration  with  a  natural  law.^jThe  flexi 
bility  of  their  dress  gives  them  every 
opportunity  to  modify,  to  enhance,  to  re 
veal,  and  to  conceal.  It  is  in  the  highest 
degree  interpretative,  and  through  it  they 
express  their  aspirations  and  ideals,  their 
thirst  for  combat  and  their  realization  of 
defeat,  their  fluctuating  sentiments  and 
v  their  permanent  predispositions. 

"A  winning  wave,  deserving  note, 
In  the  tempestuous  petticoat ; 
A  careless  shoe-string,  in  whose  tie 
I  see  a  wild  civility." 

I  Naturally,  in  a  matter  so  vital,  they  are 
not  disposed  to  listen  to  reason,  and  they 
cannot  be  argued  out  of  a  great  funda 
mental  instinct.  Women  are  constitu 
tionally  incapable  of  being  influenced  by 
argument,  —  a  limitation  which  is  in  the 

^nature  of  a  safeguard.  The  cunning 
words  in  which  M.  Marcel  Provost  urges 
them  to  follow  the  example  of  men, 
sounds,  to  their  ears,  a  little  like  the 
words  in  which  the  fox  which  had  lost 
192 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

its  tail  counsels  its  fellow  foxes  to  rid 
themselves  of  so  despicable  an  append 
age.  "  Before  the  Revolution,"  writes  M. 
Provost,  in  his  "  Lettres  a  Francois,"  "  the 
clothes  worn  by  men  of  quality  were 
more  costly  than  those  worn  by  women. 
To-day  all  men  dress  with  such  uniform 
ity  that  a  Huron,  transported  to  Paris  or 
to  London,  could  not  distinguish  master 
from  valet.  This  will  assuredly  be  the 
fate  of  feminine  toilets  in  a  future  more 
or  less  near.  The  time  must  come  when 
the  varying  costumes  now  seen  at  balls, 
at  the  races,  at  the  theatre,  will  all  be 
swept  away;  and  in  their  place  women 
will  wear,  as  men  do,  a  species  of  uni 
form.  There  will  be  a  '  woman's  suit,' 
costing  sixty  francs  at  Batignolles,  and 
five  hundred  francs  in  the  rue  de  la 
Paix ;  and,  this  reform  once  accom 
plished,  it  will  never  be  possible  to  return 
to  old  conditions.  Reason  will  have  tri 
umphed." 

Perhaps  !  But  reason  has  been  routed 
193 


Americans  and  Others 

so  often  from  the  field  that  one  no  longer 
feels  confident  of  her  success.  M.  Bau- 
drillart  had  a  world  of  reason  on  his  side 
when,  before  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
he  urged  reform  in  dress,  and  the  legal 
suppression  of  jewels  and  costly  fabrics. 
M.  de  Lavaleye,  the  Belgian  statist,  was 
fortified  by  reason  when  he  proposed  his 
grey  serge  uniform  for  women  of  all 
classes.  If  we  turn  back  a  page  or  two 
of  history,  and  look  at  the  failure  of  the 
sumptuary  laws  in  England,  we  find  the 
wives  of  London  tradesmen, who  were  not 
permitted  to  wear  velvet  in  public,  lining 
their  grogram  gowns  with  this  costly 
fabric,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  posses 
sion,  for  the  meaningless  —  and  most 
unreasonable  —  joy  of  expenditure.  And 
when  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  considered 
extravagance  in  dress  to  be  a  royal  pre 
rogative,  attempted  to  coerce  the  ladies 
of  her  court  into  simplicity,  the  Countess 
of  Shrewsbury  comments  with  ill-con 
cealed  irony  on  the  result  of  such  rea- 
194 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

sonable  endeavours.  "  How  often  hath 
her  majestic,  with  the  grave  advice  of 
her  honourable  Councell,  sette  down  the 
limits  of  apparell  of  every  degree ;  and 
how  soon  again  hath  the  pride  of  our 
harts  overflown  the  chanell." 

There  are  two  classes  of  critics  who 
still  waste  their  vital  forces  in  a  futile  at 
tempt  to  reform  feminine  dress.  The  first 
class  cherish  artistic  sensibilities  which 
are  grievously  wounded  by  the  caprices 
of  fashion.  They  anathematize  a  civiliza 
tion  which  tolerates  ear-rings,  or  feathered 
hats,  or  artificial  flowers.  They  appear 
to  suffer  vicarious  torments  from  high- 
heeled  shoes,  spotted  veils,  and  stays. 
They  have  occasional  doubts  as  to  the 
moral  influence  of  ball-dresses.  An  un 
usually  sanguine  writer  of  this  order  has 
assured  us,  in  the  pages  of  the  "  Con 
temporary  Review,"  that  when  women 
once  assume  their  civic  responsibilities, 
they  will  dress  as  austerely  as  men.  The 
first  fruits  of  the  suffrage  will  be  seen  in 
195 


Americans  and  Others 

sober  and  virtue-compelling  gowns  at 
the  opera. 

The  second  class  of  critics  is  made  up 
of  economists,  who  believe  that  too  much 
of  the  world's  earnings  is  spent  upon 
clothes,  and  that  this  universal  spirit  of  ex 
travagance  retards  marriage,  and  blocks 
the  progress  of  the  race.  It  is  in  an  ig 
noble  effort  to  pacify  these  last  censors 
that  women  writers  undertake  to  tell  their 
women  readers,  in  the  pages  of  women's 
periodicals,  how  to  dress  on  sums  of  in 
credible  insufficiency.  Such  misleading 
guides  would  be  harmless,  and  even  in 
their  way  amusing,  if  nobody  believed 
them ;  but  unhappily  somebody  always 
does  believe  them,  and  that  somebody  is 
too  often  a  married  man.  There  is  no 
measure  to  the  credulity  of  the  average 
semi-educated  man  when  confronted  by  a 
printed  page  (print  carries  such  authority 
in  his  eyes),  and  with  rows  of  figures,  all 
showing  conclusively  that  two  and  two 
make  three,  and  that  with  economy  and 
196 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

good  management  they  can  be  reduced  to 
one  and  a  half.  He  has  never  mastered, 
and  apparently  never  will  master,  the 
exact  shade  of  difference  between  a  state 
ment  and  a  fact. 

Women  are,  under  most  circumstances, 
even  more  readily  deceived ;  but,  in  the 
matter  of  dress,  they  have  walked  the 
thorny  paths  of  experience.  They  know 
the  cruel  cost  of  everything  they  wear,  — 
a  cost  which  in  this  country  is  artifi 
cially  maintained  by  a  high  protective 
tariff,  —  and  they  are  not  to  be  cajoled  by 
that  delusive  word  "simplicity,"  being 
too  well  aware  that  it  is,  when  synony 
mous  with  good  taste,  the  consummate 
success  of  artists,  and  the  crowning 
achievement  of  wealth.  Some  years  ago 
there  appeared  in  one  of  the  English 
magazines  an  article  entitled,  "How 
to  Dress  on  Thirty  Pounds  a  Year.  As 
a  Lady.  By  a  Lady."  Whereupon 
"Punch"  offered  the  following  light- 
minded  amendment  :  "  How  to  Dress  on 
197 


Americans  and  Others 

Nothing  a  Year.  As  a  Kaffir.  By  a  Kaf 
fir."  At  least  a  practical  proposition. 

Mr.  Henry  James  has  written  some 
charming  paragraphs  on  the  symbolic 
value  of  clothes,  as  illustrated  by  the  cos 
tumes  worn  by  the  French  actresses  of 
the  Comedie,  —  women  to  whose  unerr 
ing  taste  dress  affords  an  expression  of 
fine  dramatic  quality.  He  describes  with 
enthusiasm  the  appearance  of  Madame 
Nathalie,  when  playing  the  part  of  an  el 
derly  provincial  bourgeoise  in  a  curtain- 
lifter  called  "  Le  Village." 

"It  was  the  quiet  felicity  of  the  old 
lady's  dress  that  used  to  charm  me.  She 
wore  a  large  black  silk  mantilla  of  a  pe 
culiar  cut,  which  looked  as  if  she  had  just 
taken  it  tenderly  out  of  some  old  ward 
robe  where  it  lay  folded  in  lavender,  and 
a  large  dark  bonnet,  adorned  with  hand 
some  black  silk  loops  and  bows.  The 
extreme  suggestiveness,  and  yet  the 
taste  and  temperateness  of  this  costume, 
seemed  to  me  inimitable.  The  bonnet 
198 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

alone,  with  its  handsome,  decent,  virtu 
ous  bows,  was  worth  coming  to  see." 

If  we  compare  this  "  quiet  felicity  "  of 
the  artist  with  the  absurd  travesties  worn 
on  our  American  stage,  we  can  better 
understand  the  pleasure  which  filled  Mr. 
James's  heart.  What,  for  example,  would 
Madame  Nathalie  have  thought  of  the 
modish  gowns  which  Mrs.  Fiske  intro 
duces  into  the  middle-class  Norwegian 
life  of  Ibsen's  dramas  ?  No  plays  can  less 
well  bear  such  inaccuracies,  because  they 
depend  on  their  stage-setting  to  bring 
before  our  eyes  their  alien  aspect,  to 
make  us  feel  an  atmosphere  with  which 
we  are  wholly  unfamiliar.  The  accessor 
ies  are  few,  but  of  supreme  importance  ; 
and  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  keenly  in 
telligent  actress  like  Mrs.  Fiske  should 
sacrifice  vraisemblance  to  a  meaningless 
refinement.  In  the  second  act  of  "  Ros- 
mersholm,"  to  take  a  single  instance, 
the  text  calls  for  a  morning  wrapper,  a 
thing  so  manifestly  careless  and  informal 
199 


Americans  and  Others 

that  the  school-master,  Kroll,  is  scanda 
lized  at  seeing  Rebecca  in  it,  and  says 
so  plainly.  But  as  Mrs.  Fiske  plays  the 
scene  in  a  tea-gown  of  elaborate  ele 
gance,  in  which  she  might  with  propriety 
have  received  the  Archbishop  of  Canter 
bury,  Kroll's  studied  apologies  for  in 
truding  upon  her  before  she  has  had 
time  to  dress,  and  the  whole  suggestion 
of  undue  intimacy  between  Rebecca  and 
Rosmer,  which  Ibsen  meant  to  convey, 
is  irrevocably  lost.  And  to  weaken  a  sit 
uation  for  the  sake  of  being  prettily 
dressed  would  be  impossible  to  a  French 
actress,  trained  in  the  delicacies  of  her 
art. 

If  the  feeling  for  clothes,  the  sense  of 
their  correspondence  with  time  and  place, 
with  public  enthusiasms  and  with  priv 
ate  sensibilities,  has  always  belonged  to 
France,  it  was  a  no  less  dominant  note 
in  Italy  during  the  two  hundred  years  in 
which  she  eclipsed  and  bewildered  the 
rest  of  Christendom ;  and  it  bore  fruit  in 
200 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

those  great  historic  wardrobes  which  the 
Italian  chroniclers  describe  with  loving 
minuteness.  We  know  all  about  Isabella 
d'  Este's  gowns,  as  if  she  had  worn  them 
yesterday.  We  know  all  about  the  jewels 
which  were  the  assertion  of  her  husband's 
pride  in  times  of  peace,  and  his  security 
with  the  Lombard  bankers  in  times  of 
war.  We  know  what  costumes  the  young 
Beatrice  d'  Este  carried  with  her  on  her 
mission  to  Venice,  and  how  favourably 
they  impressed  the  grave  Venetian  Sen 
ate.  We  can  count  the  shifts  in  Lucretia 
Borgia's  trousseau,  when  that  much- 
slandered  woman  became  Duchess  of  Fer- 
rara,  and  we  can  reckon  the  cost  of  the 
gold  fringe  which  hung  from  her  linen 
sleeves.  We  are  told  which  of  her  robes 
was  wrought  with  fish  scales,  and  which 
with  interlacing  leaves,  and  which  with  a 
hem  of  pure  and  flame-like  gold.  Ambas 
sadors  described  in  state  papers  her  green 
velvet  cap  with  its  golden  ornaments, 
and  the  emerald  she  wore  on  her  fore- 
201 


Americans  and  Others 

head,  and  the  black  ribbon  which  tied 
her  beautiful  fair  hair. 

These  vanities  harmonized  with  char 
acter  and  circumstance.  The  joy  of  liv 
ing  was  then  expressing  itself  in  an  over 
whelming  sense  of  beauty,  and  in  mate 
rial  splendour  which,  unlike  the  material 
splendour  of  to-day,  never  overstepped 
the  standard  set  by  the  intellect.  Taste 
had  become  a  triumphant  principle,  and 
as  women  grew  in  dignity  and  import 
ance,  they  set  a  higher  and  higher  value 
on  the  compelling  power  of  dress.  They 
had  no  more  doubt  on  this  score  than 
had  wise  Homer  when  he  hung  the  neck 
laces  around  Aphrodite's  tender  neck  be 
fore  she  was  well  out  of  the  sea,  winding 
them  row  after  row  in  as  many  circles  as 
there  are  stars  clustering  about  the  moon. 
No  more  doubt  than  had  the  fair  and  vir 
tuous  Countess  of  Salisbury,  who,  so 
Froissart  tells  us,  chilled  the  lawless  pas 
sion  of  Edward  the  Third  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  wearing  unbefitting  clothes. 
202 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

Saint  Lucy,  under  somewhat  similar  cir 
cumstances,  felt  it  necessary  to  put  out 
her  beautiful  eyes ;  but  Katharine  of 
Salisbury  knew  men  better  than  the  saint 
knew  them.  She  shamed  her  loveliness 
by  going  to  Edward's  banquet  looking 
like  a  rustic,  and  found  herself  in  con 
sequence  very  comfortably  free  from 
royal  attentions. 

In  the  wise  old  days  when  men  out 
shone  their  consorts,  we  find  their  hearts 
set  discerningly  on  one  supreme  extrav 
agance.  Lace,  the  most  artistic  fabric 
that  taste  and  ingenuity  have  devised, 
"  the  fine  web  which  feeds  the  pride  of 
the  world,"  was  for  centuries  the  delight 
of  every  well-dressed  gentleman.  We 
know  not  by  what  marital  cajolery  Mr. 
Pepys  persuaded  Mrs.  Pepys  to  give  him 
the  lace  from  her  best  petticoat,  "  that 
she  had  when  I  married  her  "  ;  but  we  do 
know  that  he  used  it  to  trim  a  new  coat ; 
and  that  he  subsequently  noted  down  in 
his  diary  one  simple,  serious,  and  heart- 
203 


Americans  and  Others 

felt  resolution,  which  we  feel  sure  was 
faithfully  kept :  "  Henceforth  I  am  de 
termined  my  chief  expense  shall  be  in 
lace  bands."  Charles  the  Second  paid 
fifteen  pounds  apiece  for  his  lace-trimmed 
night-caps  ;  William  the  Third,  five  hun 
dred  pounds  for  a  set  of  lace-trimmed 
night-shirts ;  and  Cinq-Mars,  the  favour 
ite  of  Louis  the  Thirteenth,  who  was  be 
headed  when  he  was  barely  twenty-two, 
found  time  in  his  short  life  to  acquire 
three  hundred  sets  of  lace  ruffles.  The 
lace  collars  of  Van  Dyck's  portraits,  the 
lace  cravats  which  Grahame  of  Claver- 
house  and  Montrose  wear  over  their 
armour,  are  subtly  suggestive  of  the 
strength  that  lies  in  delicacy.  The  fight 
ing  qualities  of  Claverhouse  were  not  less 
effective  because  of  those  soft  folds  of 
lace  and  linen.  The  death  of  Montrose 
was  no  less  noble  because  he  went  to  the 
scaffold  in  scarlet  and  fine  linen,  with 
"  stockings  of  incarnate  silk,  and  roses 
on  his  shoon."  Once  Carlyle  was  dispar- 
204 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

aging  Montrose,  as  (being  in  a  denun 
ciatory  mood)  he  would  have  disparaged 
the  Archangel  Michael;  and,  finding  his 
hearers  disposed  to  disagree  with  him, 
asked  bitterly  :  "  What  did  Montrose  do 
anyway?"  Whereupon  Irving  retorted: 
"  He  put  on  a  clean  shirt  to  be  hanged 
in,  and  that  is  more  than  you,  Carlyle, 
would  ever  have  done  in  his  place." 

It  was  the  association  of  the  scaffold 
with  an  ignoble  victim  which  banished 
black  satin  from  the  London  world.  Be 
cause  a  foul-hearted  murderess  '  elected 
to  be  hanged  in  this  material,  English 
women  refused  for  years  to  wear  it,  and 
many  bales  of  black  satin  languished  on 
the  drapers'  shelves,  — a  memorable  in 
stance  of  the  significance  which  attaches 
itself  to  dress.  The  caprices  of  fashion 
do  more  than  illustrate  a  woman's  ca 
pacity  or  incapacity  for  selection.  They 
mirror  her  inward  refinements,  and  sym 
bolize  those  feminine  virtues  and  vani- 

1  Mrs.  Manning. 
205 


Americans  and  Others 

ties  which  are  so  closely  akin  as  to  be 
occasionally  undistinguishable. 

"A  saint  in  crape  is  twice  a  saint  in  lawn," 

mocked  Pope  ;  and  woman  smiles  at  the 
satire,  knowing  more  about  the  matter 
than  Pope  could  ever  have  known,  and 
seeing  a  little  sparkle  of  truth  glimmer 
ing  beneath  the  gibe.  Fashion  fluctuates 
from  one  charming  absurdity  to  another, 
and  each  in  turn  is  welcomed  and  dis 
missed  ;  through  each  in  turn  woman 
endeavours  to  reveal  her  own  elusive 
personality.  Poets  no  longer  praise  with 
Herrick  the  brave  vibrations  of  her  petti 
coats.  Ambassadors  no  longer  describe 
her  caps  and  ribbons  in  their  official 
documents.  Novelists  no  longer  devote 
twenty  pages,  as  did  the  admirable  Rich 
ardson,  to  the  wedding  finery  of  their 
heroines.  Men  have  ceased  to  be  vitally 
interested  in  dress,  but  none  the  less  are 
they  sensitive  to  its  influence  and  en 
slaved  by  its  results ;  while  women,  pre 
serving  through  the  centuries  the  great 
206 


The  Temptation  of  Eve 

traditions  of  their  sex,  still  rate  at  its 
utmost  value  the  prize  for  which  Eve 
sold  her  freehold  in  the  Garden  of  Para 
dise. 


"The  Greatest  of  These  is 
Charity" 

Mrs.  James  Gordon  Harrington  Balder- 
ston  to  Mrs.  Lapham  Shepherd 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  SHEPHERD, 
Will  you  pardon  me  for  this 
base  encroachment  on  your 
time?  Busy  women  are  the  only  ones 
who  ever  have  any  time,  so  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  forced  to  steal  from  them.  And 
then  all  that  you  organize  is  so  success 
ful  that  every  one  turns  naturally  to  you 
for  advice  and  assistance,  as  I  am  turn 
ing  now.  A  really  charming  woman,  a 
Miss  Alexandrina  Ramsay,  who  has  lived 
for  years  in  Italy,  is  anxious  to  give  a 
series  of  lectures  on  Dante.  I  am  sure 
they  will  be  interesting,  for  she  can  put  so 
much  local  colour  into  them,  and  I  un- 
208 


Charity 


derstand  she  is  a  fluent  Italian  scholar. 
Her  uncle  was  the  English  Consul  in 
Florence  or  Naples,  I  don't  remember 
which,  so  she  has  had  unusual  opportun 
ities  for  study ;  and  her  grandfather  was 
Dr.  Alexander  Ramsay,  who  wrote  a  his 
tory  of  the  Hebrides.  Unfortunately  her 
voice  is  not  very  strong,  so  she  would  be 
heard  to  the  best  advantage  in  a  draw 
ing-room.  I  am  wondering  whether  you 
would  consent  to  lend  yours,  which  is  so 
beautiful,  or  whether  you  could  put  Miss 
Ramsay  in  touch  with  the  Century  Club, 
or  the  Spalding  School.  You  will  find 
her  attractive,  I  am  sure.  The  Penhursts 
knew  her  well  in  Munich,  and  have  given 
her  a  letter  to  me. 

Pray  allow  me  to  congratulate  you  on 
your  new  honours  as  a  grandmother.  I 
trust  that  both  your  daughter  and  the 
baby  are  well. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

IRENE  BALDERSTON. 

209 


Americans  and  Others 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Miss  Ramsay's 
lectures  are  on 

Dante,  the  Lover. 

Dante,  the  Poet. 

Dante,  the  Patriot. 

Dante,  the  Reformer. 
There  was  a  fifth  on  Dante,  the  Prophet, 
but  I  persuaded  her  to  leave  it  out  of  the 
course. 

I.  B. 

Mrs.  Lapham  Shepherd  to  Mrs.  Wilfred 
Ward  Hamilton 

DEAR  MRS.  HAMILTON,  — 

Mrs.  James  Balderston  has  asked  me 
to  do  what  I  can  for  a  Miss  Alexandrina 
Ramsay  (granddaughter  of  the  histo 
rian),  who  wants  to  give  four  lectures  on 
Dante  in  Philadelphia.  She  has  chopped 
him  up  into  poet,  prophet,  lover,  etc.  I 
cannot  have  any  lectures  or  readings  in 
my  house  this  winter.  Jane  is  still  far 
from  strong,  and  we  shall  probably  go 
South  after  Christmas.  Please  don't  let 
210 


Charity 


me  put  any  burden  on  your  shoulders ; 
but  if  Dr.  Hamilton  could  persuade  those 
nice  Quakers  at  Swarthmore  that  there 
is  nothing  so  educational  as  a  course  of 
Dante,  it  would  be  the  best  possible 
opening  for  Miss  Ramsay.  Mrs.  Balder- 
ston  seems  to  think  her  voice  would  not 
carry  in  a  large  room,  but  as  students 
never  listen  to  anybody,  this  would  make 
very  little  difference.  The  Century  Club 
has  been  suggested,  but  I  fancy  the 
classes  there  have  been  arranged  for  the 
season.  There  are  preparatory  schools, 
are  n't  there,  at  Swarthmore,  which  need 
to  know  about  Dante  ?  Or  would  there 
be  any  chance  at  all  at  Miss  Irington's  ? 
Miss  Ramsay  has  been  to  see  me,  and 
I  feel  sorry  for  the  girl.  Her  uncle  was 
the  English  Consul  at  Milan,  and  the 
poor  thing  loved  Italy  (who  does  n't !), 
and  hated  to  leave  it.  I  wish  she  could 
establish  herself  as  a  lecturer,  though 
there  is  nothing  I  detest  more  ardently 
than  lectures. 

211 


Americans  and  Others 

I  missed  you  sorely  at  the  meeting  of 
the  Aubrey  Home  house-committee  yes 
terday.  Harriet  Maline  and  Mrs.  Percy 
Brown  had  a  battle  royal  over  the  laying 
of  the  new  water-pipes,  and  over  my 
prostrate  body,  which  still  aches  from  the 
contest.  I  wish  Harriet  would  resign.  She 
is  the  only  creature  I  have  ever  known, 
except  the  Bate's  parrot  and  my  present 
cook,  who  is  perpetually  out  of  temper. 
If  she  were  not  my  husband's  step 
mother's  niece,  I  am  sure  I  could  stand 
up  to  her  better. 

Cordially  yours, 
ALICE  LEIGH  SHEPHERD. 

Mrs.  Wilfred  Ward  Hamilton  to  Miss 
Violet  Wray 

DEAR  VIOLET,  - 

You  know  Margaret  Irington  better 
than  I  do.  Do  you  think  she  would  like 
to  have  a  course  of  Dante  in  her  school 
this  winter?  A  very  clever  and  charming 
woman,  a  Miss  Alexandrina  Ramsay, 
212 


Charity 


has  four  lectures  on  the  poet  which  she  is 
anxious  to  give  before  schools,  or  clubs, 
or  —  if  she  can  —  in  private  houses.  I 
have  promised  Mrs.  Shepherd  to  do 
anything  in  my  power  to  help  her.  It 
occurred  to  me  that  the  Contemporary 
Club  might  like  to  have  one  of  the  lec 
tures,  and  you  are  on  the  committee. 
That  would  be  the  making  of  Miss  Ram 
say,  if  only  she  could  be  heard  in  that 
huge  Clover  Room.  I  understand  she  has 
a  pleasant  cultivated  voice,  but  is  not  ac 
customed  to  public  speaking.  There  must 
be  plenty  of  smaller  clubs  at  Bryn  Mawr, 
or  Haverford,  or  Chestnut  Hill,  for  which 
she  would  be  just  the  thing.  Her  grand 
father  wrote  a  history  of  England,  and  I 
have  a  vague  impression  that  I  studied 
it  at  school.  I  should  write  to  the  Drexel 
Institute,  but  don't  know  anybody  con 
nected  with  it.  Do  you?  It  would  be  a 
real  kindness  to  give  Miss  Ramsay  a 
start,  and  I  know  you  do  not  begrudge 
trouble  in  a  good  cause.  You  did  such 
213 


Americans  and  Others 

wonders  for  Fraulein    Breitenbach   last 
winter. 

Love  to  your  mother, 

Affectionately  yours, 
HANNAH  GALE  HAMILTON. 

Miss  Violet  Wray  to  Mrs.  J.  Lockwood 
Smith 

DEAR  ANN,  — 

I  have  been  requested  by  Hannah 
Hamilton  —  may  Heaven  forgive  her !  — 
to  find  lecture  engagements  for  a  Miss 
Ramsay,  Miss  Alexandrina  Ramsay,  who 
wants  to  tell  the  American  public  what 
she  knows  about  Dante.  Why  a  Scotch 
woman  should  be  turned  loose  in  the 
Inferno,  I  cannot  say ;  but  it  seems  her 
father  or  her  grandfather  wrote  school- 
books,  and  she  is  carrying  on  the  educa 
tional  traditions  of  the  family.  Hannah 
made  the  unholy  suggestion  that  she 
should  speak  at  the  Contemporary  Club, 
and  offered  as  an  inducement  the  fact 
that  she  could  n't  be  heard  in  so  large  a 
214 


Charity 


room.  But  we  are  supposed  to  discuss 
topics  of  the  day,  and  Dante  happened 
some  little  while  ago.  He  has  no  bearing 
upon  aviation,  or  National  Insurance 
Bills  (that  is  our  subject  next  Monday 
night) ;  but  he  is  brimming  over  with 
ethics,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  your  precious 
Ethical  Society  to  grapple  with  him  ex 
haustively.  I  always  wondered  what  took 
you  to  that  strange  substitute  for  church  ; 
but  now  I  see  in  it  the  hand  of  Provi 
dence  pointing  the  way  to  Miss  Ramsay's 
lecture  field.  Please  persuade  your  fel 
low  Ethicals  that  four  lectures — or  even 
one  lecture  —  on  Dante  will  be  what 
Alice  Hunt  calls  an  "  uplift."  I  feel  that 
I  must  try  and  find  an  opening  for  Han 
nah's  protegee,  because  she  helped  me 
with  Fraulein  Breitenbach's  concert  last 
winter,  —  a  circumstance  she  does  not 
lightly  permit  me  to  forget.  Did  I  say, 
"  May  Heaven  forgive  her "  for  sad 
dling  me  with  this  Scotch  schoolmaster's 
daughter  ?  Well,  I  take  back  that  devout 
215 


Americans  and  Others 

supplication.  May  jackals  sit  on  her 
grandmother's  grave !  Meantime  here  is 
Miss  Ramsay  to  be  provided  for.  If  your 
Ethicals  (disregarding  their  duty)  will 
have  none  of  her,  please  think  up  some 
body  with  a  taste  for  serious  study,  and 
point  out  that  Dante,  elucidated  by  a 
Scotchwoman,  will  probably  be  as  seri 
ous  as  anything  that  has  visited  Phila 
delphia  since  the  yellow  fever. 

If  you  want  one  of  Grisette's  kittens, 
there  are  still  two  left.  The  handsomest 
of  all  has  gone  to  live  in  regal  splendour 
at  the  Bruntons,  and  I  have  promised 
another  to  our  waitress  who  was  married 
last  month.  Such  are  the  vicissitudes  of 
life. 

Ever  yours, 

VIOLET  WRAY. 

Mrs.  J.  Lockwood  Smith  to  Mrs.  James 
Gordon  Harrington  Balderston 

DEAR  MRS.  BALDERSTON,- 

I  want  to  enlist  your  interest  in  a  clever 
216 


Charity 


young  Scotchwoman,  a  Miss  Alexandrina 
Ramsay,  who  hopes  to  give  four  lectures 
on  Dante  in  Philadelphia  this  winter. 
Her  father  was  an  eminent  teacher  in 
his  day,  and  I  understand  she  is  thor 
oughly  equipped  for  her  work.  Heaven 
knows  I  wish  fewer  lecturers  would  cross 
the  sea  to  enlighten  our  ignorance,  and 
so  will  you  when  you  get  this  letter ;  but 
I  remember  with  what  enthusiasm  you 
talked  about  Italy  and  Dante  at  Brown's 
Mills  last  spring,  and  I  trust  that  your 
ardour  has  not  waned.  The  Century  Club 
seems  to  me  the  best  possible  field  for 
Miss  Ramsay.  Do  you  know  any  one  on 
the  entertainment  committee,  and  do  you 
think  it  is  not  too  late  in  the  season  to 
apply?  Of  course  there  are  always  the 
schools.  Dear  Mrs.  Balderston,  I  should 
feel  more  shame  in  troubling  you,  did  I 
not  know  how  capable  you  are,  and  how 
much  weight  your  word  carries.  Violet 
Wray  and  Mrs.  Wilfred  Hamilton  are 
tremendously  interested  in  Miss  Ramsay. 
217 


Americans  and  Others 

May  I  tell  Violet  to  send  her  to  you,  so 
that  you  can  see  for  yourself  what  she  is 
like,  and  what  chances  she  has  of  suc 
cess  ?  Please  be  quite  frank  in  saying  yes 
or  no,  and  believe  me  always, 
Yours  very  cordially, 

ANN  HAZELTON  SMITH. 


The  Customary  Correspond 
ent 

"  Letters  warmly  sealed  and  coldly  opened." 

RICHTER. 

WHY  do  so  many  ingenious 
theorists  give  fresh  reasons 
every  year  for  the  decline  of 
letter  writing,  and  why  do  they  assume, 
in  derision  of  suffering  humanity,  that  it 
has  declined  ?  They  lament  the  lack  of 
leisure,  the  lack  of  sentiment,  —  Mr.  Lu 
cas  adds  the  lack  of  stamps,  —  which 
chill  the  ardour  of  the  correspondent; 
and  they  fail  to  ascertain  how  chilled  he 
is,  or  how  far  he  sets  at  naught  these 
justly  restraining  influences.  They  talk 
of  telegrams,  and  telephones,  and  postal 
cards,  as  if  any  discovery  of  science,  any 
device  of  civilization,  could  eradicate  from 
the  human  heart  that  passion  for  self-ex- 
219 


Americans  and  Others 

pression  which  is  the  impelling  force  of 
letters.  They  also  fail  to  note  that,  side 
by  side  with  telephones  and  telegrams, 
comes  the  baleful  reduction  of  postage 
rates,  which  lowers  our  last  barrier  of 
defence.  Two  cents  an  ounce  leaves  us 
naked  at  the  mercy  of  the  world. 

It  is  on  record  that  a  Liverpool  trades 
man  once  wrote  to  Dickens,  to  express 
the  pleasure  he  had  derived  from  that 
great  Englishman's  immortal  novels, 
and  enclosed,  by  way  of  testimony,  a 
cheque  for  five  hundred  pounds.  This  is 
a  phenomenon  which  ought  to  be  more 
widely  known  than  it  is,  for  there  is  no 
natural  law  to  prevent  its  recurrence ; 
and  while  the  wrorld  will  never  hold  an 
other  Dickens,  there  are  many  deserving 
novelists  who  may  like  to  recall  the  in 
cident  when  they  open  their  morning's 
mail.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  associate 
our  morning's  mail  with  such  fair  illu 
sions  ;  and  though  writing  to  strangers 
is  but  a  parlous  pastime,  the  Liverpool 
220 


Customary  Correspondent 

gentleman  threw  a  new  and  radiant  light 
upon  its  possibilities.  "  The  gratuitous 
contributor  is,  ex  vi  termini,  an  ass," 
said  Christopher  North  sourly ;  but  then 
he  never  knew,  nor  ever  deserved  to 
know,  this  particular  kind  of  contribution. 
Generally  speaking,  the  unknown  cor 
respondent  does  not  write  to  praise.  His 
guiding  principle  is  the  diffusion  of  use 
less  knowledge,  and  he  demands  or  im 
parts  it  according  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  hour.  It  is  strange  that  a  burning 
thirst  for  information  should  be  com 
bined  with  such  reluctance  to  acquire  it 
through  ordinary  channels.  A  man  who 
wishes  to  write  a  paper  on  the  botanical 
value  of  Shakespeare's  plays  does  not 
dream  of  consulting  a  concordance  and 
a  botany,  and  then  going  to  work.  The 
bald  simplicity  of  such  a  process  offends 
his  sense  of  magnitude.  He  writes  to 
a  distinguished  scholar,  asking  a  num 
ber  of  burdensome  questions,  and  is  ap 
parently  under  the  impression  that  the 
221 


Americans  and  Others 

resources  of  the  scholar's  mind,  the  fruits 
of  boundless  industry,  should  be  cheer 
fully  placed  at  his  disposal.  A  woman 
who  meditates  a  "  literary  essay  "  upon 
domestic  pets  is  not  content  to  track  her 
quarry  through  the  long  library  shelves. 
She  writes  to  some  painstaking  worker, 
enquiring  what  English  poets  have  "sung 
the  praises  of  the  cat,"  and  if  Cowper 
was  the  only  author  who  ever  domesti 
cated  hares  ?  One  of  Huxley's  most 
amusing  letters  is  written  in  reply  to  a 
gentleman  who  wished  to  compile  an 
article  on  "Home  Pets  of  Celebrities," 
and  who  unhesitatingly  applied  for  par 
ticulars  concerning  the  Hodeslea  cat. 

These  are,  of  course,  labour-saving 
devices,  but  economy  of  effort  is  not  al 
ways  the  ambition  of  the  correspondent. 
It  would  seem  easier,  on  the  whole,  to 
open  a  dictionary  of  quotations  than  to 
compose  an  elaborately  polite  letter,  re 
questing  to  know  who  said  — 

44  Fate  cannot  harm  me;  I  have  dined  to-day." 
222 


Customary  Correspondent 

It  is  certainly  easier,  and  far  more  agree 
able,  to  read  Charles  Lamb's  essays  than 
to  ask  a  stranger  in  which  one  of  them 
he  discovered  the  author's  heterodox 
views  on  encyclopaedias.  It  involves  no 
great  fatigue  to  look  up  a  poem  of  Her- 
rick's,  or  a  letter  of  Shelley's,  or  a  novel 
of  Peacock's  (these  things  are  accessible 
and  repay  enquiry),  and  it  would  be  a 
rational  and  self-respecting  thing  to  do, 
instead  of  endeavouring  to  extort  infor 
mation  (like  an  intellectual  footpad)  from 
writers  who  are  in  no  way  called  upon 
to  furnish  it. 

One  thing  is  sure.  As  long  as  there 
are  people  in  this  world  whose  guiding 
principle  is  the  use  of  other  people's 
brains,  there  can  be  no  decline  and  fall 
of  letter-writing.  The  correspondence 
which  plagued  our  great-grandfathers 
a  hundred  years  ago,  plagues  their  de 
scendants  to-day.  Readers  of  Lockhart's 
"Scott"  will  remember  how  an  Edin 
burgh  minister  named  Brunton,  who 
223 


Americans  and  Others 

wished  to  compile  a  hymnal,  wrote  to 
the  poet  Crabbe  for  a  list  of  hymns ;  and 
how  Crabbe  (who,  albeit  a  clergyman, 
knew  probably  as  little  about  hymns  as 
any  man  in  England)  wrote  in  turn  to 
Scott,  to  please  help  him  to  help  Brun- 
ton  ;  and  how  Scott  replied  in  despera 
tion  that  he  envied  the  hermit  of  Prague 
who  never  saw  pen  nor  ink.  How  many 
of  us  have  in  our  day  thought  longingly 
of  that  blessed  anchorite !  Surely  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  must,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  have  shared  Scott's  senti 
ments,  when  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  pub 
lic  press,  explaining  with  patient  courtesy 
that,  being  old,  and  busy,  and  very  tired, 
it  was  no  longer  possible  for  him  to  an 
swer  all  the  unknown  correspondents 
who  demanded  information  upon  every 
variety  of  subject.  He  had  tried  to  do 
this  for  many  years,  but  the  tax  was  too 
heavy  for  his  strength,  and  he  was  com 
pelled  to  take  refuge  in  silence. 

Ingenious   authors  and   editors   who 
224 


Customary  Correspondent 

ask  for  free  copy  form  a  class  apart. 
They  are  not  pursuing  knowledge  for 
their  own  needs,  but  offering  themselves 
as  channels  through  which  we  may  grat 
uitously  enlighten  the  world.  Their  ques 
tions,  though  intimate  to  the  verge  of 
indiscretion,  are  put  in  the  name  of  hu 
manity  ;  and  we  are  bidden  to  confide  to 
the  public  how  far  we  indulge  in  the  use 
of  stimulants,  what  is  the  nature  of  our 
belief  in  immortality,  if  —  being  women 
—  we  should  prefer  to  be  men,  and  what 
incident  of  our  lives  has  most  profoundly 
affected  our  careers.  Reticence  on  our 
part  is  met  by  the  assurance  that  emi 
nent  people  all  over  the  country  are 
hastening  to  answer  these  queries,  and 
that  the  "unique  nature"  of  the  discus 
sion  will  make  it  of  permanent  value  to 
mankind.  We  are  also  told  in  soothing 
accents  that  our  replies  need  not  exceed 
a  few  hundred  words,  as  the  editor  is 
nobly  resolved  not  to  infringe  upon  our 
valuable  time. 

225 


Americans  and  Others 

Less  commercial,  but  quite  as  import 
unate,  are  the  correspondents  who  belong 
to  literary  societies,  and  who  have  under 
taken  to  read,]before  these  select  circles, 
papers  upon  every  conceivable  subject, 
from  the  Bride  of  the  Canticle  to  the  di 
vorce  laws  of  France.  They  regret  their 
own  ignorance  —  as  well  they  may- 
and  blandly  ask  for  aid.  There  is  no 
limit  to  demands  of  this  character.  The 
young  Englishwoman  who  wrote  to 
Tennyson,  requesting  some  verses  which 
she  might  read  as  her  own  at  a  picnic, 
was  not  more  intrepid  than  the  Amer 
ican  school-girl  who  recently  asked  a 
man  of  letters  to  permit  her  to  see  an 
unpublished  address,  as  she  had  heard 
that  it  dealt  with  the  subject  of  her  grad 
uation  paper,  and  hoped  it  might  give 
her  some  points.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  the  timidity  natural  to  youth  —  or 
which  we  used  to  think  natural  to  youth 
—  could  be  so  easily  overcome  ;  or  that 
the  routine  of  school  work,  which  makes 
226 


Customary  Correspondent 

for  honest  if  inefficient  acquirements, 
could  leave  a  student  still  begging  or 
borrowing  her  way. 

We  must  in  justice  admit,  however, 
that  the  unknown  correspondent  is  as 
ready  to  volunteer  assistance  as  to  de 
mand  it.  He  is  ingenious  in  criticism, 
and  fertile  in  suggestions.  He  has  in 
spirations  in  the  way  of  plots  and  topics, 
-like  that  amiable  baronet,  Sir  John 
Sinclair,  who  wanted  Scott  to  write  a 
poem  on  the  adventures  and  intrigues 
of  a  Caithness  mermaiden,  and  who 
proffered  him,  by  way  of  inducement, 
"  all  the  information  I  possess."  The  cor 
respondent's  tone,  when  writing  to  hum 
bler  drudges  in  the  field,  is  kind  and 
patronizing.  He  admits  that  he  likes 
your  books,  or  at  least  —  here  is  a  veiled 
reproach  —  that  he  "  has  liked  the  earlier 
ones" ;  he  assumes,  unwarrantably,  that 
you  are  familiar  with  his  favourite  au 
thors  ;  and  he  believes  that  it  would  be 
for  you  "an  interesting  and  congenial 
227 


Americans  and  Others 

task  "  to  trace  the  "  curious  connection  " 
between  American  fiction  and  the  stock 
exchange.  Sometimes,  with  thinly  veiled 
sarcasm,  he  demands  that  you  should 
"enlighten  his  dulness,"  and  say  why 
you  gave  your  book  its  title.  If  he  can 
not  find  a  French  word  you  have  used  in 
his  "  excellent  dictionary,"  he  thinks  it 
worth  while  to  write  and  tell  you  so. 
He  fears  you  do  not  "  wholly  understand 
or  appreciate  the  minor  poets  of  your 
native  land"  ;  and  he  protests,  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  anger,  against  certain  in 
nocent  phrases  with  which  you  have  dis 
figured  "  your  otherwise  graceful  pages." 
Now  it  must  be  an  impulse  not  easily 
resisted  which  prompts  people  to  this 
gratuitous  expression  of  their  opinions. 
They  take  a  world  of  trouble  which  they 
could  so  easily  escape ;  they  deem  it 
their  privilege  to  break  down  the  barriers 
which  civilization  has  taught  us  to  re 
spect  ;  and  if  they  ever  find  themselves 
repaid,  it  is  assuredly  by  something  re- 
228 


Customary  Correspondent 

mote  from  the  gratitude  of  their  corre 
spondents.  Take,  for  example,  the  case 
of  Mr.  Peter  Bayne,  journalist,  and  bi 
ographer  of  Martin  Luther,  who  wrote 
to  Tennyson,  —  with  whom  he  was  unac 
quainted,  —  protesting  earnestly  against 
a  line  in  "  Lady  Clare":  — 

"  '  If  I  'm  a  beggar  born,'  she  said." 

It  was  Mr.  Bayne's  opinion  that  such  an 
expression  was  not  only  exaggerated, 
inasmuch  as  the  nurse  was  not,  and  never 
had  been,  a  beggar ;  but,  coming  from  a 
child  to  her  mother,  was  harsh  and  un- 
filial.  "  The  criticism  of  my  heart,"  he 
wrote,  "  tells  me  that  Lady  Clare  could 
never  have  said  that." 

Tennyson  was  perhaps  the  last  man  in 
Christendom  to  have  accepted  the  testi 
mony  of  Mr.  Bayne's  heart-throbs.  He 
intimated  with  some  asperity  that  he 
knew  better  than  any  one  else  what  Lady 
Clare  did  say,  and  he  pointed  out  that  she 
had  just  cause  for  resentment  against  a 
229 


Americans  and  Others 

mother  who  had  placed  her  in  such  an 
embarrassing  position.  The  controversy 
is  one  of  the  drollest  in  literature ;  but 
what  is  hard  to  understand  is  the  mental 
attitude  of  a  man  —  and  a  reasonably 
busy  man  —  who  could  attach  so  much 
importance  to  Lady  Clare's  remarks,  and 
who  could  feel  himself  justified  in  cor 
recting  them. 

Begging  letters  form  a  class  apart. 
They  represent  a  great  and  growing  in 
dustry,  and  they  are  too  purposeful  to 
illustrate  the  abstract  passion  for  corre 
spondence.  Yet  marvellous  things  have 
been  done  in  this  field.  There  is  an  in 
genuity,  a  freshness  and  fertility  of  de 
vice  about  the  begging  letter  which  lifts 
it  often  to  the  realms  of  genius.  Experi 
enced  though  we  all  are,  it  has  surprises 
in  store  for  every  one  of  us.  Seasoned 
though  we  are,  we  cannot  read  without 
appreciation  of  its  more  daring  and  fan 
tastic  flights.  There  was,  for  instance,  a 
very  imperative  person  who  wrote  to 
230 


Customary  Correspondent 

Dickens  for  a  donkey,  and  who  said  he 
would  call  for  it  the  next  day,  as  though 
Dickens  kept  a  herd  of  donkeys  in  Tavi- 
stock  Square,  and  could  always  spare 
one  for  an  emergency.  There  was  a 
French  gentleman  who  wrote  to  Moore, 
demanding  a  lock  of  Byron's  hair  for  a 
young  lady,  who  would  —  so  he  said  — 
die  if  she  did  not  get  it.  This  was  a  very 
lamentable  letter,  and  Moore  was  con 
jured,  in  the  name  of  the  young  lady's 
distracted  family,  to  send  the  lock,  and 
save  her  from  the  grave.  And  there  was 
a  misanthrope  who  wrote  to  Peel  that  he 
was  weary  of  the  ways  of  men  (as  so, 
no  doubt,  was  Peel),  and  who  requested 
a  hermitage  in  some  nobleman's  park, 
where  he  might  live  secluded  from  the 
world.  The  best  begging-letter  writers 
depend  upon  the  element  of  surprise  as 
a  valuable  means  to  their  end.  I  knew  a 
benevolent  old  lady  who,  in  1885,  was 
asked  to  subscribe  to  a  fund  for  the  pur 
chase  of  "moderate  luxuries"  for  the 
231 


Americans  and  Others 

French  soldiers  in  Madagascar.  "  What 
did  you  do?"  I  asked,  when  informed  of 
the  incident.  "  I  sent  the  money,"  was  the 
placid  reply.  "  I  thought  I  might  never 
again  have  an  opportunity  to  send  money 
to  Madagascar." 

It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  a  word 
of  praise,  a  word  of  thanks,  sometimes 
a  word  of  criticism,  have  been  powerful 
factors  in  the  lives  of  men  of  genius.  We 
know  how  profoundly  Lord  Byron  was 
affected  by  the  letter  of  a  consumptive 
girl,  written  simply  and  soberly,  signed 
with  initials  only,  seeking  no  notice  and 
giving  no  address  ;  but  saying  in  a  few 
candid  words  that  the  writer  wished  be 
fore  she  died  to  thank  the  poet  for  the 
rapture  his  poems  had  given  her.  "  I 
look  upon  such  a  letter,"  wrote  Byron  to 
Moore,  "as  better  than  a  diploma  from 
Gottingen."  We  know,  too,  what  a  splen 
did  impetus  to  Carlyle  was  that  first  letter 
from  Goethe,  a  letter  which  he  confessed 
seemed  too  wonderful  to  be  real,  and 
232 


Customary  Correspondent 

more  "like  a  message  from  fairyland." 
It  was  but  a  brief  note  after  all,  tepid, 
sensible,  and  egotistical ;  but  the  magic 
sentence,  "  It  may  be  I  shall  yet  hear 
much  of  you,"  became  for  years  an  im 
pelling  force,  the  kind  of  prophecy  which 
insured  its  own  fulfilment. 

Carlyle  was  susceptible  to  praise, 
though  few  readers  had  the  temerity  to 
offer  it.  We  find  him,  after  the  publica 
tion  of  the  "  French  Revolution,"  writing 
urbanely  to  a  young  and  unknown  ad 
mirer  ;  "  I  do  not  blame  your  enthusi 
asm."  But  when  a  less  happily-minded 
youth  sent  him  some  suggestions  for 
the  reformation  of  society,  Carlyle,  who 
could  do  all  his  own  grumbling,  returned 
his  disciple's  complaints  with  this  laconic 
denial:  "A  pack  of  damned  nonsense, 
you  unfortunate  fool."  It  sounds  unkind ; 
but  we  must  remember  that  there  were 
six  posts  a  day  in  London,  that  "  each 
post  brought  its  batch  of  letters,"  and 
that  nine  tenths  of  these  letters  —  so  Car- 
233 


Americans  and  Others 

lyle  says  -  -  were  from  strangers,  de 
manding  autographs,  and  seeking  or 
proffering  advice.  One  man  wrote  that 
he  was  distressingly  ugly,  and  asked 
what  should  he  do  about  it.  "  So  profit 
able  have  my  epistolary  fellow  creatures 
grown  to  me  in  these  years,"  notes  the 
historian  in  his  journal,  "  that  when  the 
postman  leaves  nothing,  it  may  well  be 
felt  as  an  escape." 

The  most  patient  correspondent  known 
to  fame  was  Sir  Walter  Scott,  though 
Lord  Byron  surprises  us  at  times  by  the 
fine  quality  of  his  good  nature.  His  let 
ters  are  often  petulant,  —  especially  when 
Murray  has  sent  him  tragedies  instead  of 
tooth-powder ;  but  he  is  perhaps  the  only 
man  on  record  who  received  with  perfect 
equanimity  the  verses  of  an  aspiring 
young  poet,  wrote  him  the  cheerfullest 
of  letters,  and  actually  invited  him  to 
breakfast.  The  letter  is  still  extant ;  but 
the  verses  \vere  so  little  the  precursor  of 
fame  that  the  youth's  subsequent  history 
234 


Customary  Correspondent 

is  to  this  day  unknown.  It  was  with  truth 
that  Byron  said  of  himself :  "  I  am  really 
a  civil  and  polite  person,  and  do  hate 
pain  when  it  can  be  avoided." 

Scott  was  also  civil  and  polite,  and 
his  heart  beat  kindly  for  every  species  of 
bore.  As  a  consequence,  the  world  be 
stowed  its  tediousness  upon  him,  to  the 
detriment  of  his  happiness  and  health. 
Ingenious  jokers  translated  his  verses 
into  Latin,  and  then  wrote  to  accuse  him 
of  plagiarizing  from  Vida.  Proprietors  of 
patent  medicines  offered  him  fabulous 
sums  to  link  his  fame  with  theirs.  Modest 
ladies  proposed  that  he  should  publish 
their  effusions  as  his  own,  and  share  the 
profits.  Poets  demanded  that  he  should 
find  publishers  for  their  epics,  and  dram 
atists  that  he  should  find  managers  for 
their  plays.  Critics  pointed  out  to  him 
his  anachronisms,  and  well-intentioned 
readers  set  him  right  on  points  of  moral 
ity  and  law.  When  he  was  old,  and  ill, 
and  ruined,  there  was  yet  no  respite 
235 


Americans  and  Others 

from  the  curse  of  correspondents.  A  year 
before  his  death  he  wrote  dejectedly  in 
his  journal :  —  "  A  fleece  of  letters  which 
must  be  answered,  I  suppose ;  all  from  per 
sons —  my  zealous  admirers,  of  course 
-who  expect  me  to  make  up  whatever 
losses  have  been  their  lot,  raise  them  to  a 
desirable  rank,  and  stand  their  protector 
and  patron.  I  must,  they  take  it  for 
granted,  be  astonished  at  having  an  ad 
dress  from  a  stranger.  On  the  contrary, 
I  should  be  astonished  if  one  of  these 
extravagant  epistles  came  from  anybody 
who  had  the  least  title  to  enter  into  cor 
respondence." 

And  there  are  people  who  believe,  or 
who  pretend  to  believe,  that  fallen  hu 
man  nature  can  be  purged  and  amended 
by  half-rate  telegrams,  and  a  telephone 
ringing  in  the  hall.  Rather  let  us  abandon 
illusions,  and  echo  Carlyle's  weary  cry, 
when  he  heard  the  postman  knocking 
at  his  door  :  "  Just  Heavens  !  Does  lit 
erature  lead  to  this !  " 


The  Benefactor 

"  He  is  a  good  man  who  can  receive  a  gift  well." 
—  EMERSON. 

THERE  is  a  sacredness  of  hu 
mility  in  such  an  admission 
which  wins  pardon  for  all  the 
unlovely  things  which  Emerson  has 
crowded  into  a  few  pages  upon  "  Gifts." 
Recognizing  that  his  own  goodness 
stopped  short  of  this  exalted  point,  he 
pauses  for  a  moment  in  his  able  and  bit 
ter  self-defence  to  pay  tribute  to  a  gen 
erosity  he  is  too  honest  to  claim.  After 
all,  who  but  Charles  Lamb  ever  did  re 
ceive  gifts  well  ?  Scott  tried,  to  be  sure. 
No  man  ever  sinned  less  than  he  against 
the  law  of  kindness.  But  Lamb  did  not 
need  to  try.  He  had  it  in  his  heart  of 
gold  to  feel  pleasure  in  the  presents 
which  his  friends  took  pleasure  in  giving 
him.  The  character  and  quality  of  the 
237 


Americans  and  Others 

gifts  were  not  determining  factors.  We 
cannot  analyze  this  disposition.  We  can 
only  admire  it  from  afar. 

"  I  look  upon  it  as  a  point  of  morality 
to  be  obliged  to  those  who  endeavour  to 
oblige  me,"  says  Sterne ;  and  the  senti 
ment,  like  most  of  Sterne's  sentiments, 
is  remarkably  graceful.  It  has  all  the 
freshness  of  a  principle  never  fagged  out 
by  practice.  The  rugged  fashion  in  which 
Emerson  lived  up  to  his  burdensome 
ideals  prompted  him  to  less  engaging 
utterances.  "  It  is  not  the  office  of  a  man 
to  receive  gifts,"  he  writes  viciously. 
"  How  dare  you  give  them  ?  We  wish  to 
be  self-sustained.  We  do  not  quite  for 
give  a  giver.  The  hand  that  feeds  us  is 
in  some  danger  of  being  bitten." 

Carlyle  is  almost  as  disquieting.  He 
searches  for,  and  consequently  finds,  un 
worthy  feelings  both  in  the  man  who 
gives,  and  holds  himself  to  be  a  bene 
factor,  and  in  the  man  who  receives,  and 
burdens  himself  with  a  sense  of  obliga- 

238 


The  Benefactor 

tion.  He  professes  a  stern  dislike  for 
presents,  fearing  lest  they  should  under 
mine  his  moral  stability  ;  but  a  man  so 
up  in  morals  must  have  been  well  aware 
that  he  ran  no  great  risk  of  parting  with 
his  stock  in  trade.  He  probably  hated 
getting  what  he  did  not  want,  and  find 
ing  himself  expected  to  be  grateful  for 
it.  This  is  a  sentiment  common  to  lesser 
men  than  Carlyle,  and  as  old  as  the  old 
est  gift-bearer.  It  has  furnished  food  for 
fables,  inspiration  for  satirists,  and  cruel 
stories  at  which  the  light-hearted  laugh. 
Mr.  James  Payn  used  to  tell  the  tale  of 
an  advocate  who  unwisely  saved  a  client 
from  the  gallows  which  he  should  have 
graced  ;  and  the  man,  inspired  by  the 
best  of  motives,  sent  his  benefactor  from 
the  West  Indies  a  case  of  pineapples  in 
which  a  colony  of  centipedes  had  bred 
so  generously  that  they  routed  every 
servant  from  the  unfortunate  lawyer's 
house,  and  dwelt  hideously  and  perma 
nently  in  his  kitchen.  "A  purchase  is 
239 


Americans  and  Others 

cheaper  than  a  gift,"  says  a  wily  old  Ital 
ian  proverb,  steeped  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  centuries. 

The  principle  which  prompts  the  selec 
tion  of  gifts  —  since  selected  they  all  are 
by  some  one  —  is  for  the  most  part  a  mys 
tery.  I  never  but  once  heard  any  reason 
able  solution,  and  that  was  volunteered 
by  an  old  lady  who  had  been  listening  in 
silence  to  a  conversation  on  the  engross 
ing  subject  of  Christmas  presents.  It 
was  a  conversation  at  once  animated  and 
depressing.  The  time  was  at  hand  when 
none  of  us  could  hope  to  escape  these 
tokens  of  regard,  and  the  elaborate  and 
ingenious  character  of  their  unfitness 
was  frankly  and  fairly  discussed.  What 
baffled  us  was  the  theory  of  choice.  Sud 
denly  the  old  lady  flooded  this  dark  prob 
lem  with  light  by  observing  that  she  al 
ways  purchased  her  presents  at  bazaars. 
She  said  she  knew  they  were  useless, 
and  that  nobody  wanted  them,  but  that 
she  considered  it  her  duty  to  help  the 
240 


The  Benefactor 

bazaars.  She  had  the  air  of  one  conscious 
of  well-doing,  and  sure  of  her  reward.  It 
did  not  seem  to  occur  to  her  that  the  re 
ward  should,  in  justice,  be  passed  on 
with  the  purchases.  The  necessities  of 
charitable  organizations  called  for  a  sac 
rifice,  and,  rising  to  the  emergency,  she 
sacrificed  her  friends. 

A  good  many  years  have  passed  over 
our  heads  since  Thackeray  launched  his 
invectives  at  the  Christmas  tributes  he 
held  in  heartiest  hatred,  —  the  books 
which  every  season  brought  in  its  train, 
and  which  were  never  meant  to  be  read. 
Their  mission  was  fulfilled  when  they 
were  sent  by  aunt  to  niece,  by  uncle  to 
nephew,  by  friend  to  hapless  friend. 
They  were  "  gift-books  "  in  the  exclusive 
sense  of  the  word.  Thackeray  was  wont 
to  declare  that  these  vapid,  brightly 
bound  volumes  played  havoc  with  the 
happy  homes  of  England,  just  as  the  New 
Year  bonbons  played  havoc  with  the 
homes  of  France.  Perhaps,  of  the  two 
241 


Americans  and  Others 

countries,  France  suffered  less.  The  candy 
soon  disappeared,  leaving-  only  impaired 
digestions  in  its  wake.  The  books  re 
mained  to  encumber  shelves,  and  bore 
humanity  afresh. 


j 

"  Moi,je  dis  que  les  bonbons 
Valent  mieux  que  la  raison 


and  they  are  at  least  less  permanently 
oppressive.  "When  thou  makest  pres 
ents,"  said  old  John  Fuller,  "  let  them  be 
of  such  things  as  will  last  long;  to  the 
end  that  they  may  be  in  some  sort  im 
mortal,  and  may  frequently  refresh  the 
memory  of  the  receiver."  But  this  excel 
lent  advice  —  excellent  for  the  simple  and 
spacious  age  in  which  it  was  written  — 
presupposes  the  "  immortal  "  presents  to 
wear  well.  Theologians  teach  us  that  im 
mortality  is  not  necessarily  a  blessing. 

A  vast  deal  of  ingenuity  is  wasted 
every  year  in  evoking  the  undesirable, 
in  the  careful  construction  of  objects 
which  burden  life.  Frankenstein  was  a 
large  rather  than  an  isolated  example. 
242 


The  Benefactor 

The  civilized  world  so  teems  with  elab 
orate  and  unlovely  inutilities,  with  things 
which  seem  foreign  to  any  reasonable 
conditions  of  existence,  that  we  are  some 
times  disposed  to  envy  the  savage  who 
wears  all  his  simple  wardrobe  without 
being  covered,  and  who  sees  all  his  sim 
ple  possessions  in  a  corner  of  his  empty 
hut.  What  pleasant  spaces  meet  the 
savage  eye !  What  admirable  vacancies 
soothe  the  savage  soul !  No  embroidered 
bag  is  needed  to  hold  his  sponge  or  his 
slippers.  No  painted  box  is  destined  for 
his  postal  cards.  No  decorated  tablet 
waits  for  his  laundry  list.  No  ornate  wall- 
pocket  yawns  for  his  unpaid  bills.  He 
smokes  without  cigarette-cases.  He 
dances  without  cotillion  favours.  He  en 
joys  all  rational  diversions,  unf retted  by 
the  superfluities  with  which  we  have 
weighted  them.  Life,  notwithstanding 
its  pleasures,  remains  endurable  to  him. 
Above  all,  he  does  not  undermine  his 
own  moral  integrity  by  vicarious  benevo- 
243 


Americans  and  Others 

lence,  by  helping  the  needy  at  his  friend's 
expense.  The  great  principle  of  giving 
away  what  one  does  not  want  to  keep 
is  probably  as  familiar  to  the  savage  as 
to  his  civilized,  or  semi-civilized  brother. 
That  vivacious  traveller,  Pere  Hue,  tells 
us  he  has  seen  a  Tartar  chief  at  dinner 
gravely  hand  over  to  an  underling  a 
piece  of  gristle  he  found  himself  unable  to 
masticate,  and  that  the  gift  was  received 
with  every  semblance  of  gratitude  and 
delight.  But  there  is  a  simple  straight 
forwardness  about  an  act  like  this  which 
commends  it  to  our  understanding.  The 
Tartar  did  not  assume  the  gristle  to  be 
palatable.  He  did  not  veil  his  motives 
for  parting  with  it.  He  did  not  expand 
with  the  emotions  of  a  philanthropist. 
And  he  did  not  expect  the  Heavens  to 
smile  upon  his  deed. 

One  word  must  be  said  in  behalf  of  the 

punctilious  giver,  of  the  man  who  repays  a 

gift  as  scrupulously  as  he  returns  a  blow. 

He  wants  to  please,  but  he  is  baffled  by 

244 


The  Benefactor 

not  knowing,  and  by  not  being  sympa 
thetic  enough  to  divine,  what  his  inarticu 
late  friend  desires.  And  if  he  does  know, 
he  may  still  vacillate  between  his  friend's 
sense  of  the  becoming  and  his  own.  The 
"  Spectator,"  in  a  mood  of  unwonted 
subtlety,  tells  us  that  there  is  a  "mild 
treachery  "  in  giving  what  we  feel  to  be 
bad,  because  we  are  aware  that  the  re 
cipient  will  think  it  very  good.  If,  for  ex 
ample,  we  hold  garnets  to  be  ugly  and 
vulgar,  we  must  not  send  them  to  a 
friend  who  considers  them  rich  and  splen 
did.  "A  gift  should  represent  common 
ground." 

This  is  so  well  said  that  it  sounds  like 
the  easy  thing  it  is  n't.  Which  of  us  has 
not  nobly  striven,  and  ignobly  failed,  to 
preserve  our  honest  purpose  without 
challenging  the  taste  of  our  friends?  It 
is  hard  to  tell  what  people  really  prize. 
Heine  begged  for  a  button  from  George 
Sand's  trousers,  and  who  shall  say 
whether  enthusiasm  or  malice  prompted 
245 


Americans  and  Others 

the  request?  Mr.  Oscar  Browning,  who 
as  Master  at  Eton  must  have  known 
whereof  he  spoke,  insisted  that  it  was  a 
mistake  to  give  a  boy  a  well-bound  book 
if  you  expected  him  to  read  it.  Yet  bind 
ing  plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  selec 
tion  of  Christmas  and  birthday  presents. 
Dr.  Johnson  went  a  step  farther,  and  said 
that  nobody  wanted  to  read  any  book 
which  was  given  to  him;  —  the  mere  fact 
that  it  was  given,  instead  of  being  bought, 
borrowed,  or  ravished  from  a  friend's 
shelves,  militated  against  its  readable 
qualities.  Perhaps  the  Doctor  was  think 
ing  of  authors'  copies.  Otherwise  the 
remark  is  the  most  discouraging  one  on 
record. 

Yet  when  all  the  ungracious  things 
have  been  said  and  forgotten,  when 
the  hard  old  proverbs  have  exhausted 
their  unwelcome  wisdom,  and  we  have 
smiled  wearily  over  the  deeper  cynicisms 
of  Richelieu  and  Talleyrand,  where  shall 
we  turn  for  relief  but  to  Emerson,  who  has 
246 


The  Benefactor 

atoned  in  his  own  fashion  for  the  harsh 
ness  of  his  own  words.  It  is  not  only  that 
he  recognizes  the  goodness  of  the  man 
who  receives  a  gift  well ;  but  he  sees,  and 
sees  clearly,  that  there  can  be  no  question 
between  friends  of  giving  or  receiving,  no 
possible  room  for  generosity  or  gratitude. 
"The  gift  to  be  true  must  be  the  flowing 
of  the  giver  unto  me,  correspondent  to  my 
flowing  unto  him.  When  the  waters  are 
at  a  level,  then  my  goods  pass  to  him, 
and  his  to  me.  All  his  are  mine,  all  mine, 
his." 

Critics  have  been  disposed  to  think  that 
this  is  an  elevation  too  lofty  for  plain 
human  beings  to  climb,  an  air  too  rari- 
fied  for  them  to  breathe ;  and  that  it  ill 
befitted  a  man  who  churlishly  resented 
the  simple,  stupid  kindnesses  of  life,  to 
take  so  sublime  a  tone,  to  claim  so  fine 
a  virtue.  We  cannot  hope  to  scale  great 
moral  heights  by  ignoring  petty  obliga 
tions. 

Yet  Emerson  does  not  go  a  step  be- 
247 


Americans  and  Others 

yond  Plato  in  his  conception  of  the  "  level 
waters  "  of  friendship.  He  states  his  po 
sition  lucidly,  and  with  a  rational  under 
standing  of  all  that  it  involves.  His  vision 
is  wide  enough  to  embrace  its  everlasting 
truth.  Plato  says  the  same  thing  in  simpler 
language.  He  offers  his  truth  as  self-evi 
dent,  and  in  no  need  of  demonstration. 
When  Lysis  and  Menexenus  greet  So 
crates  at  the  gymnasia,  the  philosopher 
asks  which  of  the  two  youths  is  the 
elder. 

"  '  That,'  said  Menexenus,  '  is  a  matter 
of  dispute  between  us.' 

"  '  And  which  is  the  nobler  ?  Is  that 
also  a  matter  of  dispute  ? ' 

'"Yes,  certainly.' 

"  '  And  another  disputed  point  is  which 
is  the  fairer  ? ' 

"  The  two  boys  laughed. 

"  '  I  shall  not  ask  which  is  the  richer, 
for  you  are  friends,  are  you  not  ? ' 

"  '  We  are  friends.' 

" '  And  friends  have  all  things  in  com- 
248 


The  Benefactor 

mon,  so  that  one  of  you  can  be  no  richer 
than  the  other,  if  you  say  truly  that  you 
are  friends.' 

"They  assented,  and  at  that  moment 
Menexenus  was  called  away  by  some  one 
who  came  and  said  that  the  master  of  the 
gymnasia  wanted  him." ' 

This  is  all.  To  Plato's  way  of  thinking, 
the  situation  explained  itself.  The  two 
boys  could  not  share  their  beauty  nor 
their  strength,  but  money  was  a  thing  to 
pass  from  hand  to  hand.  It  was  not,  and 
it  never  could  be,  a  matter  for  competi 
tion.  The  last  lesson  taught  an  Athenian 
youth  was  the  duty  of  outstripping  his 
neighbour  in  the  hard  race  for  wealth. 

And  where  shall  we  turn  for  a  practi 
cal  illustration  of  friendship,  as  conceived 
by  Emerson  and  Plato  ?  Where  shall  we 
see  the  level  waters,  the  "  mine  is  thine" 
which  we  think  too  exalted  for  plain  liv 
ing  ?  No  need  to  search  far,  and  no  need 
to  search  amid  the  good  and  great.  It  is 

1  Lysis.  Translated  by  Jowett. 
249 


Americans  and  Others 

a  pleasure  to  find  what  we  seek  in  the 
annals  of  the  flagrantly  sinful,  of  that  no 
torious  Duke  of  Queensberry,  "Old  Q," 
who  has  been  so  liberally  and  justly  cen 
sured  by  Wordsworth  and  Burns,  by 
Leigh  Hunt  and  Sir  George  Trevelyan, 
and  who  was,  in  truth,  gamester,  roue,  — 
and  friend.  In  the  last  capacity  he  was 
called  upon  to  listen  to  the  woes  of  George 
Selwyn,  who,  having  lost  at  Newmarket 
more  money  than  he  could  possibly  hope 
to  pay,  saw  ruin  staring  him  in  the  face. 
There  is  in  Selwyn's  letter  a  note  of  elo 
quent  misery.  He  was,  save  when  lulled 
to  sleep  in  Parliament,  a  man  of  many 
words.  There  is  in  the  letter  of  Lord 
March  (he  had  not  yet  succeeded  to  the 
Queensberry  title  and  estates)  nothing 
but  a  quiet  exposition  of  Plato's  theory 
of  friendship.  Selwyn's  debts  and  his 
friend's  money  are  intercommunicable. 
The  amount  required  has  been  placed 
that  morning  at  the  banker's.  "  I  depend 
more,"  writes  Lord  March,  "  upon  the 
250 


The  Benefactor 

continuance  of  our  friendship  than  upon 
anything  else  in  the  world,  because  I 
have  so  many  reasons  to  know  you,  and 
I  am  sure  I  know  myself.  There  will  be 
no  bankruptcy  without  we  are  bankrupt 
together" 

Here  are  the  waters  flowing  on  a  level, 
flowing  between  two  men  of  the  world  ; 
one  of  them  great  enough  to  give,  with 
out  deeming  himself  a  benefactor,  and 
the  other  good  enough  to  receive  a  gift 
well. 


The  Condescension  of 
Borrowers 

"Iln'est  si  riche  qui  quelquefois  ne  doibve.  II 
n'est  si  pauvre  de  qui  quelquefois  on  ne  puisse  em- 
prunter. "  — Pantagruel. 

I  LENT  my  umbrella,"  said  my 
friend,  "to  my  cousin,  Maria.  I  was 
compelled  to  lend  it  to  her  because 
she  could  not,  or  would  not,  leave  my 
house  in  the  rain  without  it.  I  had  need 
of  that  umbrella,  and  I  tried  to  make  it 
as  plain  as  the  amenities  of  language 
permitted  that  I  expected  to  have  it  re 
turned.  Maria  said  superciliously  that 
she  hated  to  see  other  people's  umbrellas 
littering  the  house^which  gave  me  a 
gleam  of  hope.  Two  months  later  I  found 
my  property  in  the  hands  of  her  ten- 
year-old  son,  wrho  was  being  marshalled 
with  his  brothers  and  sisters  to  dancing- 
school.  In  the  first  joyful  flash  of  recog- 
252 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

nition  I  cried,  'Oswald,  that  is  my 
umbrella  you  are  carrying  !  whereupon 
Maria  said  still  more  superciliously  than 
before,  'Oh,  yes,  don't  you  remember?' 
(as  if  reproaching  me  for  my  forgetful- 
ness)  — '  you  gave  it  to  me  that  Saturday 

^^^ 

I  lunched  with  you,  and  it  rained  so 
heavily.  The  boys  carry  it  to  school.*1 
Where  there  are  children,  you  can't  have 
too  many  old  umbrellas  at  hand.  They 
lose  them  so  fast.'  She  spoke,"  continued 
my  friend  impressively,  "  as  if  she  were 
harbouring  my  umbrella  from  pure  kind 
ness,  and  because  she  did  not  like  to 
wound  my  feelings  by  sending  it  back 
to  me.  She  made  a  X7irti1Q~  of  giving  it 
shelter." 
This  is  the  arrogance  which  places  the 

^^P 

borrower,  as  Charles  Lamb  discovered 
long  ago^  among  the  great  ones  of  the 
eartttT^arnong  those  whom  their  brethren 
serve.  Lamb  loved  to  contrast  the  "  in 
stinctive  sovereignty,"  the  frank  and 
open  bearing  of  the  man  who  borrows 
253 


Americans  and  Others 

with  the  "  lean  and  suspicious"  aspect 
of  the  man  who  lends.  He  stood  lost  in 
admiration  before  the  great  borrowers  of 
the  world,  —  Alcibiades,  FalstafT,  Steele, 
and  Sheridan  ;  an  incomparable  quar 
tette,  to  which  might  be  added  the  shin 
ing  names  of  William  Godwin  and  Leigh 
Hunt.  All  the  characteristic  qualities  of 
the  class  were  united,  indeed;  in  Leigh 
Hunt;  as  in  no  other  single  represent 
ative.  Sheridan  was  an  unrivalled  com 
panion,  —  could  talk  seven  hours  without 
making  even  Byron  yawn.  Steele  was 
the  most  lovable  of  spendthrifts.  Lend 
ing  to^tfiese  men  was  but  a  form  of  in 
vestment.  They  paid  in  a  coinage  of 
their  own.  But  Leigh  Hunt  combined  in 
the  happiest  manner  a  readiness  to  ex 
tract  favours  with  a  confirmed  habit  of 
never  acknowledging  the  smallest  obli 
gation  for  them.  He  is  a  perfect  example 
of  the  condescending  borrowei^of  the 
man  who  permits  his  friends,  as  a  pleas 
ure  to  themselvesrto  relieve  his  necessi- 
254 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

ties,  and  who  knows  nothing  of  grati 
tude  or  loyalty. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  calculate  the 
amount  of  money  which  Hunt's  friends 
and  acquaintances  contributed  to  his  sup 
port  in  life.  Shelley  gave  him  at  one  time 
fourteen  hundred  pounds,  an  amount 
which  the  poet  could  ill  spare  ;  and,  when 
he  had  no  more  to  give,  wrote  in  misery 
of  spirit  to  Byron,  begging  a  loan  for  his 
friend,  and  promising  to  repay  it,  as  he 
feels  tolerably  sure  that  Hunt  never  will. 
Byron,  generous  at  first,  wearied  after  a 
time  of  his  position  in  Hunt's  comtnisi 
sariat(it  was  like  pulling  a  man  out  of 
a  river,  he  wrote  to  Moore,  only  to  see 
him  jump  in  again),  and  coldly  with 
drew.  His  withdrawal  occasioned  incon 
venience,  and  has  been  sharply  criticised. 
Hunt,  says  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  loved  a 
cheerful  giver,  and  Byron's  obvious  reluc 
tance  struck  him  as  being  in  bad  taste. 
His  biographers,  one  and  all,  have  sympa 
thized  with  this  point  of  view.  Even  Mr. 
255 


Americans  and  Others 

Frederick  Locker,  from  whom  one  would 
have  expected  a  different  verdict,  has 
recorded  his  conviction  that  Hunt  had 
probably  been  " sorely  tried"  by  Byron. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  preordained 
borrower,  of  the  man  who  simply  fulfils 
his  destiny  in  life,  that  not  his  obligations 
only^but  his  anxieties  and  mortifications 
are  shouldered  by  other  men.  Hunt  was 
care-free  and  light-hearted  ;  but  there  is 
a  note  akin  to  anguish  in  Shelley's  peti 
tion  to  Byron,  and  in  his  shamefaced  ad 
mission  that  he  is  himself  too  ooor  to 
relieve  his  friend's  necessities^/The  cor 
respondence  of  William  Godwin's  emi 
nent  contemporaries  teem  with  projects 
to  alleviate  Godwin's  needs.  His  debts 
were  everybody's  affair  but  his  own.  Sir 
James  Mackintosh  wrote  to  Rogers  in 
the  autumn  of  1815,  suggesting  that 
Byron  might  be  the  proper  person  to  pay 
them.  Rogers,  enchanted  with  the  idea, 
wrote  to  Byron,  proposing  that  the  pur 
chase  money  of  "  The  Siege  of  Corinth  " 
256 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

be  devoted  to  this  good  purpose.  Byron, 
with  less  enthusiasm, 4mlresigned,  wrote 
to  Murray,  directing  him  to  forward  the 
six  hundred  pounds  to  Godwin ;  and 
Murray,  having  always  the  courage  of 
his  convictions,  wrote  back,  flatly  refus 
ing  to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  In  the 
end,  Byron  used  the  money  to  pay  his 
own  debts,  thereby  disgusting  every 
body  but  his  creditors. 

Six  years  later,  however,  we  find  him 
contributing  to  a  fund  which  tireless 
philanthropists  were  raising  for  God 
win's  relief.  On  this  occasion  all  men  of 
letters,  poor  as  well  as  rich,  were  pressed 
into  active  service.  Even  Lamb,  who  had 
nothing  of  his  own,  wrote  to  the  painter, 
Haydon,  who  had  not  a  penny  in  the 
world,  and  begged  him  to  beg  Mrs. 
Coutts  to  pay  Godwin's  rent.  He  also 
confessed  that  he  had  sent  "a  very  re 
spectful  letter "  —  on  behalf  of  the  rent 
-  to  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  and  he  explained 
naively  that  Godwin  did  not  concern 
257 


Americans  and  Others 

himself  personally  in  the  matter,  because 
he  "  left  all  to  his  Committee,"  —a  peace 
ful  thing  to  do. 

But  how  did  Godwin  come  to  have  a 
"committee"  to  raise  money  for  him, 
when  other  poor  devils  had  to  raise  it 
for  themselves,  or  do  without?  He  was 
not  well-beloved.  On  the  contrary,  he 
bored  all  whom  he  did  not  affront.  He 
was  not  grateful.  On  the  contrary,  he 
held  gratitude  to  be  a  vice,  as  tending 
to  make  men  "  grossly  partial  "  to  those 
who  have  befriended  them.  His  conde 
scension  kept  pace  with  his  demands. 
After  his  daughter's  flight  with  Shelley, 
he  expressed  his  just  resentment  by 
refusing  to  accept  Shelley's  cheque  for 
a  thousand  pounds  unless  it  were  made 
payable  to  a  third  party,  unless  he  could 
have  the  money  without  the  formality  of 
an  acceptance.  Like  the  great  lords  of 
Picardy,  who  had  the  "  right  of  credit " 
from  their  loyal  subjects,  Godwin  claimed 
his  dues  from  every  chance  acquaint- 

258 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

ance.  Crabb  Robinson  introduced  him 
one  evening  to  a  gentleman  named 
Rough.  The  next  day  both  Godwin  and 
Rough  called  upon  their  host,  each  man 
expressing  his  regard  for  the  other,  and 
each  asking  Robinson  if  he  thought  the 
other  would  be  a  likely  person  to  lend 
him  fifty  pounds. 

There  are  critics  who  hold  that  Hay- 
don  excelled  all  other  borrowers  known 
to  fame ;  but  his  is  not  a  career  upon 
which  an  admirer  of  the  art  can  look 
with  pleasure.  Haydon's  debts  hunted 
him  like  hounds,  and  if  he  pursued 
borrowing  as  a  means  of  livelihood,  — 
more  lucrative  than  painting  pictures 
which  nobody  would  buy, — it  was  only 
because  no  third  avocation  presented  it 
self  as  a  possibility.  He  is  not  to  be  com 
pared  for  a  moment  with  a  true  expert 
like  Sheridan,  who  borrowed  for  borrow 
ing's  sake,  and  without  any  sordid  mo 
tive  connected  with  rents  or  butchers' 
bills.  Haydon  would,  indeed,  part  with 
259 


Americans  and  Others 

his  money  as  readily  as  if  it  belonged  to 
him.  He  would  hear  an  "  inward  voice" 
in  church,  urging  him  to  give  his  last 
sovereign  ;  and,  having  obeyed  this  voice 
"  with  as  pure  a  feeling  as  ever  animated 
a  human  heart,"  he  had  no  resource  but 
immediately  to  borrow  another.  It  would 
have  been  well  for  him  if  he  could  have 
followed  on  such  occasions  the  mem 
orable  example  of  Lady  Cook,  who  was 
so  impressed  by  a  begging  sermon  that 
she  borrowed  a  sovereign  from  Sydney 
Smith  to  put  into  the  offertory ;  and  — 
the  gold  once  between  her  fingers  — 
found  herself  equally  unable  to  give  it 
or  to  return  it,  so  went  home,  a  pound 
richer  for  her  charitable  impulse. 

Haydon,  too,  would  rob  Peter  to  pay 
Paul,  and  rob  Paul  without  paying  Pe 
ter  ;  but  it  was  all  after  an  intricate  and 
troubled  fashion  of  his  own.  On  one  oc 
casion  he  borrowed  ten  pounds  from 
Webb.  Seven  pounds  he  used  to  satisfy 
another  creditor,  from  whom,  on  the 
260 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

strength  of  this  payment,  he  borrowed 
ten  pounds  more  to  meet  an  impending 
bill.  It  sounds  like  a  particularly  confus 
ing  game ;  but  it  was  a  game  played  in 
dead  earnest,  and  without  the  humorous 
touch  which  makes  the  charm  of  Lady 
Cook's,  or  of  Sheridan's  methods.  Hay- 
don  would  have  been  deeply  grateful  to 
his  benefactors,  had  he  not  always  stood 
in  need  of  favours  to  come.  Sheridan 
might  perchance  have  been  grateful, 
could  he  have  remembered  who  his  ben 
efactors  were.  He  laid  the  world  under 
tribute  ;  and  because  he  had  an  aversion 
to  opening  his  mail,  —  an  aversion  with 
which  it  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize, 
—  he  frequently  made  no  use  of  the  trib 
ute  when  it  was  paid.  Moore  tells  us  that 
James  Wesley  once  saw  among  a  pile  of 
papers  on  Sheridan's  desk  an  unopened 
letter  of  his  own,  containing  a  ten-pound 
note,  which  he  had  lent  Sheridan  some 
weeks  before.  Wesley  quietly  took  pos 
session  of  the  letter  and  the  money, 
261 


Americans  and  Others 

thereby  raising  a  delicate,  and  as  yet 
unsettled,  question  of  morality.  Had  he 
a  right  to  those  ten  pounds  because  they 
had  once  been  his,  or  were  they  not 
rather  Sheridan's  property,  destined  in 
the  natural  and  proper  order  of  things 
never  to  be  returned. 

Yet  men,  even  men  of  letters,  have 
been  known  to  pay  their  debts,  and  to 
restore  borrowed  property.  Moore  paid 
Lord  Lansdowne  every  penny  of  the 
generous  sum  advanced  by  that  noble 
man  after  the  defalcation  of  Moore's  dep 
uty  in  Bermuda.  Dr.  Johnson  paid  back 
ten  pounds  after  a  lapse  of  twenty  years, 
—  a  pleasant  shock  to  the  lender,  —  and 
on  his  death-bed  (having  fewer  sins  than 
most  of  us  to  recall)  begged  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  to  forgive  him  a  trifling  loan. 
It  was  the  too  honest  return  of  a  pair  of 
borrowed  sheets  (unwashed)  which  first 
chilled  Pope's  friendship  for  Lady  Mary 
Wortley  Montagu.  That  excellent  gossip, 
Miss  Letitia  Matilda  Hawkins,  who  stands 
262 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

responsible  for  this  anecdote,  lamented 
all  her  life  that  her  father,  Sir  John 
Hawkins,  could  never  remember  which 
of  the  friends  borrowed  and  which  lent 
the  offending  sheets ;  but  it  is  a  point 
easily  settled  in  our  minds.  Pope  was 
probably  the  last  man  in  Christendom 
to  have  been  guilty  of  such  a  misde 
meanour,  and  Lady  Mary  was  certainly 
the  last  woman  in  Christendom  to  have 
been  affronted  by  it.  Like  Dr.  Johnson, 
she  had  "no  passion  for  clean  linen." 

Coleridge,  though  he  went  through 
life  leaning  his  inert  weight  on  other 
men's  shoulders,  did  remember  -in  some 
mysterious  fashion  to  return  the  books 
he  borrowed,  enriched  often,  as  Lamb 
proudly  records,  with  marginal  notes 
which  tripled  their  value.  His  conduct  in 
this  regard  was  all  the  more  praise 
worthy  inasmuch  as  the  cobweb  stat 
utes  which  define  books  as  personal 
property  have  never  met  with  literal  ac 
ceptance.  Lamb's  theory  that, books  be-- 
263 


Americans  and  Others 

long  with  the  highest  propriety  to  those 
who  understand  them  best  (a  theory 
often  advanced  in  defence  of  depreda 
tions  which  Lamb  would  have  scorned  to 
commit),  was  popular  before  the  lament 
able  invention  of  printing.  The  library 
of  Lucullus  was,  we  are  told,  "  open  to 
all,"  and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know 
how  many  precious  manuscripts  remained 
ultimately  in  the  great  patrician's  villa. 

Richard  Heber,  that  most  princely  of 
collectors,  so  well  understood  the  perils 
of  his  position  that  he  met  them  bravely 
by  buy  ing  three  copies  of  every  book, — 
one  for  show,  one  for  use,  and  one  for 
the  service  of  his  friends.  The  position 
of  the  show-book  seems  rather  melan 
choly,  but  perhaps,  in  time,  it  replaced 
the  borrowed  volume.  Heber's  generos 
ity  has  been  nobly  praised  by  Scott,  who 
contrasts  the  hard-heartedness  of  other 
bibliophiles,  those  "  gripple  niggards " 
who  preferred  holding  on  to  their  treas 
ures,  with  his  friend's  careless  liberality. 
264 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

"  Thy  volumes,  open  as  thy  heart, 
Delight,  amusement,  science,  art, 
To  every  ear  and  eye  impart. 
Yet  who,  of  all  who  thus  employ  them, 
Can,  like  the  owner's  self,  enjoy  them?" 

The  "  gripple  niggards  "  might  have 
pleaded  feebly  in  their  own  behalf  that 
they  could  not  all  afford  to  spend,  like 
Heber,  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  in 
the  purchase  of  books  ;  and  that  an  oc 
casional  reluctance  to  part  with  some 
hard-earned,  hard-won  volume  might  be 
pardonable  in  one  who  could  not  hope 
to  replace  it.  Lamb's  books  were  the 
shabbiest  in  Christendom ;  yet  how  keen 
was  his  pang  when  Charles  Kemble  car 
ried  off  the  letters  of  "that  princely 
woman,  the  thrice  noble  Margaret  New 
castle,"  an  "illustrious  folio"  which  he 
well  knew  Kemble  would  never  read. 
How  bitterly  he  bewailed  his  rashness  in 
extolling  the  beauties  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne's  "Urn  Burial"  to  a  guest  who 
was  so  moved  by  this  eloquence  that  he 
promptly  borrowed  the  volume.  "But 
265 


Americans  and  Others 

so,"  sighed  Lamb,  "  have  I  known  a  fool 
ish  lover  to  praise  his  mistress  in  the 
presence  of  a  rival  more  qualified  to  carry 
her  off  than  himself." 

Johnson  cherished  a  dim  conviction 
that  because  he  read,  and  Garrick  did 
not,  the  proper  place  for  Garrick' s  books 
was  on  his  —  Johnson's  —  bookshelves ;  a 
point  which  could  never  be  settled  be 
tween  the  two  friends,  and  which  came 
near  to  wrecking  their  friendship.  Gar 
rick  loved  books  with  the  chilly  yet  im 
perative  love  of  the  collector.  Johnson 
loved  them  as  he  loved  his  soul.  Gar 
rick  took  pride  in  their  sumptuousness, 
in  their  immaculate,  virginal  splendour. 
Johnson  gathered  them  to  his  heart  with 
scant  regard  for  outward  magnificence, 
for  the  glories  of  calf  and  vellum.  Gar 
rick  bought  books.  Johnson  borrowed 
them.  Each  considered  that  he  had  a 
prior  right  to  the  objects  of  his  legitimate 
affection.  We,  looking  back  with  soft 
ened  hearts,  are  fain  to  think  that  we 
266 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

should  have  held  our  volumes  doubly 
dear  if  they  had  lain  for  a  time  by  John 
son's  humble  hearth,  if  he  had  pored 
over  them  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  had  left  sundry  tokens  —  grease- 
spots  and  spatterings  of  snufE  —  upon 
many  a  spotless  page.  But  it  is  hardly 
fair  to  censure  Garrick  for  not  dilating 
with  these  emotions. 

Johnson's  habit  of  flinging  the  volumes 
which  displeased  him  into  remote  and 
dusty  corners  of  the  room  was  ill  cal 
culated  to  inspire  confidence,  and  his 
powers  of  procjasliiialion  were  never 
more  marked  than  in  the  matter  of  re 
storing  borrowed  books.  We  know  from 
Cradock's  "  Memoirs  "  how  that  gentle 
man,  having  induced  Lord  Harborough 
to  lend  him  a  superb  volume  of  manu 
scripts,  containing  the  poems  of  James  the 
First,  proceeded  to  re-lend  this  priceless 
treasure  to  Johnson.  When  it  was  not 
returned  —  as  of  course  it  was  not  —  he 
wrote  an  urgent  letter,  and  heard  to  his 

267 


Americans  and  Others 

dismay  that  Johnson  was  not  only  unable 
to  find  the  book,  but  that  he  could  not  re 
member  having  ever  received  it.  The  de 
spairing  Cradock  applied  to  all  his  friends 
for  help  ;  and  George  Steevens,  who  had 
a  useful  habit  of  looking  about  him,  sug 
gested  that  a  sealed  packet,  which  he 
had  several  times  observed  lying  under 
Johnson's  ponderous  inkstand,  might 
possibly  contain  the  lost  manuscript. 
Even  with  this  ray  of  hope  for  guidance, 
it  never  seemed  to  occur  to  any  one  to 
storm  Johnson's  fortress,  and  rescue  the 
imprisoned  volume  ;  but  after  the  Doc 
tor's  death,  two  years  later,  Cradock 
made  a  formal  application  to  the  execu 
tors  ;  and  Lord  Harborough's  property 
was  discovered  under  the  inkstand,  un 
opened,  unread,  and  consequently,  as  by 
a  happy  miracle,  uninjured. 

Such  an  incident  must  needs  win  par 
don  for  Garrick's  churlishness  in  defend 
ing   his   possessions.    "The   history   of 
book-collecting,"   says  a  caustic   critic, 
268 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

"  is  a  history  relieved  but  rarely  by  acts 
of  pure  and  undiluted  unselfishness." 
This  is  true,  but  are  there  not  virtues  so 
heroic  that  plain  human  nature  can  ill 
aspire  to  compass  them  ? 

There  is  something  piteous  in  the  fu 
tile  efforts  of  reluctant  lenders  to  save 
their  property  from  depredation.  They 
place  their  reliance  upon  artless  devices 
which  never  yet  were  known  to  stay  the 
marauder's  hand.  They  have  their  names 
and  addresses  engraved  on  foolish  little 
plates,  which,  riveted  to  their  umbrellas, 
will,  they  think,  suffice  to  insure  the 
safety  of  these  useful  articles.  As  well 
might  the  border  farmer  have  engraved 
his  name  and  address  on  the  collars  of 
his  grazing  herds,  in  the  hope  that  the 
riever  would  respect  this  symbol  of  auth 
ority.  The  history  of  book-plates  is  large 
ly  the  history  of  borrower  versus  lender. 
The  orderly  mind  is  wont  to  believe  that 
a  distinctive  mark,  irrevocably  attached 
to  every  volume,  will  insure  permanent 
269 


Americans  and  Others 

possession.  Mr.  Gosse,  for  example,  has 
expressed  a  touching  faith  in  the  efficacy 
of  the  book-plate.  He  has  but  to  explain 
that  he  "  makes  it  a  rule  "  never  to  lend 
a  volume  thus  decorated,  and  the  would- 
be  borrower  bows  to  this  rule  as  to  a 
decree  of  fate.  "To  have  a  book-plate," 
he  joyfully  observes,  "  gives  a  collector 
great  serenity  and  confidence." 

Is  it  possible  that  the  world  has  grown 
virtuous  without  our  observing  it  ?  Can 
it  be  that  the  old  stalwart  race  of  book- 
borrowers,  those  "  spoilers  of  the  sym 
metry  of  shelves,"  are  foiled  by  so  child 
ish  an  expedient  ?  Imagine  Dr.  Johnson 
daunted  by  a  scrap  of  pasted  paper !  Or 
Coleridge,  who  seldom  went  through  the 
formality  of  asking  leave,  but  borrowed 
armfuls  of  books  in  the  absence  of  their 
legitimate  owners!  How  are  we  to  ac 
count  for  the  presence  of  book-plates  - 
quite  a  pretty  collection  at  times  —  on 
the  shelves  of  men  who  possess  no  such 
toys  of  their  own  ?  When  I  was  a  girl  I 
270 


Condescension  of  Borrowers 

had  access  to  a  small  and  well-chosen  li 
brary  (not  greatly  exceeding  Montaigne's 
fourscore  volumes),  each  book  enriched 
with  an  appropriate  device  of  scaly 
dragon  guarding  the  apples  of  Hesper- 
ides.  Beneath  the  dragon  was  the  motto 
(Johnsonian  in  form  if  not  in  substance), 
"  Honour  and  Obligation  demand  the 
prompt  return  of  borrowed  Books."  These 
words  ate  into  my  innocent  soul,  and 
lent  a  pang  to  the  sweetness  of  posses 
sion.  Doubts  as  to  the  exact  nature  of 
"  prompt  return"  made  me  painfully  un 
certain  as  to  whether  a  month,  a  week, 
or  a  day  were  the  limit  which  Honour 
and  Obligation  had  set  for  me.  But  other 
and  older  borrowers  were  less  sensitive, 
and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  — 
books  being  a  rarity  in  that  little  South 
ern  town  —  most  of  the  volumes  were 
eventually  absorbed  by  the  gaping  shelves 
of  neighbours.  Perhaps  even  now  (their 
generous  owner  long  since  dead)  these 
worn  copies  of  Boswell,  of  Elia,  of  Her- 
271 


Americans  and  Others 

rick,  and  Moore,  may  still  stand  forgot 
ten  in  dark  and  dusty  corners,  like  gems 
that  magpies  hide. 

It  is  vain  to  struggle  with  fate,  with  the 
elements,  and  with  the  borrower ;  it  is 
folly  to  claim  immunity  from  a  funda 
mental  law,  to  boast  of  our  brief  exemp 
tion  from  the  common  lot.  "  Lend  there 
fore  cheerfully,  O  man  ordained  to  lend. 
When  thou  seest  the  proper  authority 
coming,  meet  it  smilingly,  as  it  were  half 
way."  Resistance  to  an  appointed  force 
is  but  a  futile  waste  of  strength. 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

Of  all  animals,  the  cat  alone  attains  to  the  Con 
templative  Life. —  ANDREW  LANG. 

THE  grocer's  window  is  not  one 
of  those  gay  and  glittering  en 
closures  which  display  only  the 
luxuries  of  the  table,  and  which  give  us 
the  impression  that  there  are  favoured 
classes  subsisting  exclusively  upon  Mafa- 
ga  raisins,  Russian  chocolates,  and  Nu 
remberg  gingerbread.  It  is  an  unassum 
ing  window,  filled  with  canned  goods 
and  breakfast  foods,  wrinkled  prunes 
devoid  of  succulence,  and  boxes  of  starch 
and  candles.  Its  only  ornament  is  the 
cat,  and  his  beauty  is  more  apparent  to 
the  artist  than  to  the  fancier.  His  splen 
did  stripes,  black  and  grey  and  tawny, 
are  too  wide  for  noble  lineage.  He  has 
a  broad  benignant  brow,  like  Benja 
min  Franklin's  ;  but  his  brooding  eyes, 
273 


Americans  and  Others 

golden,  unfathomable,  deny  benignancy. 
He  is  large  and  sleek,  — the  grocery  mice 
must  be  many,  and  of  an  appetizing  fat 
ness,  —  and  I  presume  he  devotes  his 
nights  to  the  pleasures  of  the  chase.  His 
days  are  spent  in  contemplation,  in  a 
serene  and  wonderful  stillness,  which  iso 
lates  him  from  the  bustling  vulgarities  of 
the  street. 

Past  the  window  streams  the  fretful 
crowd  ;  in  and  out  of  the  shop  step  loud- 
voiced  customers.  The  cat  is  as  remote 
as  if  he  were  drowsing  by  the  waters  of 
the  Nile.  Pedestrians  pause  to  admire 
him,  and  many  of  them  endeavour,  with 
well-meant  but  futile  familiarity,  to  win 
some  notice  in  return.  They  tap  on 
the  window  pane,  and  say,  "  Halloo, 
Pussy ! "  He  does  not  turn  his  head,  nor 
lift  his  lustrous  eyes.  They  tap  harder, 
and  with  more  ostentatious  friendliness. 
The  stone  cat  of  Thebes  could  not  pay 
less  attention.  It  is  difficult  for  human 
beings  to  believe  that  their  regard  can  be 
274 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

otherwise  than  flattering  to  an  animal; 
but  I  did  see  one  man  intelligent  enough 
to  receive  this  impression.  He  was  a 
decent  and  a  good-tempered  young  per 
son,  and  he  had  beaten  a  prolonged  tat 
too  on  the  glass  with  the  handle  of  his 
umbrella,  murmuring  at  the  same  time 
vague  words  of  cajolery  Then,  as  the  «• 
cat  remained  motionless,  absorbed  in 
revery,  and  seemingly  unconscious  of  his 
unwarranted  attentions,  he  turned  to  me, 
a  new  light  dawning  in  his  eyes.  "  Thinks 
itself  some,"  he  said,  and  I  nodded  ac 
quiescence.  As  well  try  to  patronize  the  . 
Sj3hinxji$  to  patronize  a  grocer's  cat.  / 
fjNpw,  surely  this  attitude  on  the  p^rt 
of  a  small  and  helpless  beast,  dependent 
upon  our  bounty  for  food  and  shelter, 
and  upon  our  sense  of  equity  for  the 
right  to  live,  is  worthy  of  note,  and,  to 
the  generous  mind,  is  worthy  of  respect. 
Yet  there  are  people  who  most  ungener 
ously  resent  it.  They  say  the  cat  is  treach 
erous  and  ungrateful,  by  which  they 
275 


Americans  and  Others 

mean  that  she  does  not  relish  unsolicited 
fondling,  and  that,  like  Mr.  Chesterton, 
she  will  not  recognize  imaginary  obliga 
tions.  If  we  keep  a  cat  because  there  are 
mice  in  our  kitchen  or  rats  in  our  cellar, 
what  claim  have  we  to  gratitude  ?  If  we 
keep  a  cat  for  the  sake  of  her  beauty, 
and  because  our  hearth  is  but  a  poor 
affair  without  her,  she  repays  her  debt 
with  interest  when  she  dozes  by  our  fire. 
She  is  the  most  decorative  creature  the 
domestic  world  can  show.  She  harmon 
izes  with  the  kitchen's  homely  comfort, 
and  with  the  austere  seclusion  of  the 
library.  She  gratifies  our  sense  of  fitness 
and  our  sense  of  distinction,  if  we  chance 
to  possess  these  qualities.  Did  not  Isabella 
d'  Este,  Marchioness  of  Mantua,  and  the 
finest  exponent  of  distinction  in  her  lordly 
agelsend  far  and  wide  for  cats  to  grace  her 
palace  ?  Did  she  not  instruct  her  agents 
to  make  especial  search  through  the 
Venetian  convents,  where  might  be  found 
the  deep-furred  pussies  of  Syria  and  Thi- 
276 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

bet  ?  Alas  for  the  poor  nuns,  whose  cher 
ished  pets  were  snatched  away  to  gratify 
the  caprice  of  a  great  and  grasping  lady, 
who  habitually  coveted  all  that  was 
beautiful  in  the  world. 

The  cat  seldom  invites  affection,  and 
still  more  seldom  responds  to  it.  A  well- 
bred  tolerance  is  her  nearest  approach 
to  demonstration.  The  dog  strives  with 
pathetic  insistence  to  break  down  the 
barriers  between  his  intelligence  and  his 
master's,  to  understand  and  to  be  under 
stood.  The  wise  cat  cherishes  her  isola 
tion,  and  permits  us  to  play  but  a  second 
ary  part  in  her  solitary  and  meditative 
life.  Her  intelligence,  less  facile  than  the 
dog's,  and  far  less  highly  differentiated, 
owes  little  to  our  tutelage  ;  her  character 
has  not  been  moulded  by  our  hands. 
The  changing  centuries  have  left  no 
mark  upon  her ;  and,  from  a  past  incon 
ceivably  remote,  she  has  come  down  to 
us,  a  creature  self-absorbed  and  self- 
communing,  undisturbed  by  our  feverish 
277 


Americans  and  Others 

activity,  a  dreamer  of  dreams,  a  lover  of 
the  mysteries  of  night. 

And  yet  a  frieru^JKo  one  who  knows 
anything  about  the  cat  will  deny  her  ca 
pacity  for  friendship.  Rationally,  without 
enthusiasm,  without  illusions,  she  offers 
us  companionship  on  terms  of  equal 
ity.  She  will  not  come  when  she  is  sum 
moned, —  unless  the  summons  be  for  din 
ner,  —  but  she  will  come  of  her  own  sweet 
will,  and  bear  us  company  for  hours, 
sleeping  contentedly  in  her  armchair,  or 
watching  with  half-shut  eyes  the  quiet 
progress  of  our  work.  A  lover  of  routine, 
she  expects  to  find  us  in  the  same  place 
at  the  same  hour  every  day  ;  and  when 
her  expectations  are  fulfilled  (cats  have 
some  secret  method  of  their  own  for  tell 
ing  time),  she  purrs  approval  of  our 
punctuality.  What  she  detests  are  noise, 
confusion,  people  who  bustle  in  and  out 
of  rooms,  and  the  unpardonable  intru 
sions  of  the  housemaid.  On  those  un 
happy  days  when  I  am  driven  from  my 

278 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

desk  by  the  iron  determination  of  this 
maid  to  "  clean  up,"  my  cat  is  as  comfort 
less  as  I  am.  Companions  in  exile,  we 
wander  aimlessly  to  and  fro,  lamenting 
our  lost  hours.  I  cannot  explain  to  Lux 
that  the  fault  is  none  of  mine,  and  I  am 
sure  that  she  holds  me  to  blame^ 

VThere  is  something  indescribably  sweet 
in  the  quiet,  self-respecting  friendliness 
of  my  cat,  in  her  marked  predilection  for 
my  society.  The  absence  of  exuberance 
on  her  part,  and  the  restraint  I  put  upon 
myself,  lend  an  element  of  dignity  to  our 
intercourse.  Assured  that  I  will  not  pre 
sume  too  far  on  her  good  nature,  that  I 
will  not  indulge  in  any  of  those  gross 
familiarities,  those  boisterous  gambols 
which  delight  the  heart  of  a  dog,  Lux 
yields  herself  more  and  more  passively  to 
my  persuasions.  She  will  permit  an  occa 
sional  caress,  and  acknowledge  it  with  a 
perfunctory  purr.  She  will  manifest  a  pat 
ronizing  interest  in  my  work,  stepping 
sedately  among  my  papers,  and  now 
279 


Americans  and  Others 

and  then  putting  her  paw  with  infinite 
deliberation  on  the  page  I  am  writing,  as 
though  the  smear  thus  contributed  spelt, 
"  Lux,  her  mark,"  and  was  a  reward  of 
merit.  But  she  never  curls  herself  upon 
my  desk,  never  usurps  the  place  sacred 
to  the  memory  of  a  far  dearer  cat.  Some 
invisible  influence  restrains  her.  When 
her  tour  of  inspection  is  ended,  she  re 
turns  to  her  chair  by  my  side,  stretching 
herself  luxuriously  on  her  cushions,  and 
watching  with  steady,  sombre  stare  the 
inhibited  spot,  and  the  little  grey  phan 
tom  which  haunts  my  lonely  hours  by 
[right  of  my  inalienable  love. 

liu"x  is  a  lazy  cat,  wedded  to  a  contem 
plative  life.  She  cares  little  for  play,  and 
nothing  for  work,  —  the  appointed  work 
of  cats.  The  notion  that  she  has  a  duty 
to  perform,  that  she  owes  service  to  the 
home  which  shelters  her,  that  only  those 
who  toil  are  worthy  of  their  keep,  has 
never  entered  her  head.  She  is  content 
to  drink  the  cream  of  idleness,  and  she 
280 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

does  this  in  a  spirit  of  condescension, 
wonderful  to  behold.  The  dignified  dis 
taste  with  which  she  surveys  a  dinner 
not  wholly  to  her  liking,  carries  confu 
sion  to  the  hearts  of  her  servitors.  It 
is  as  though  Lucullus,  having  ordered 
Neapolitan  peacock,  finds  himself  put  off 
with  nightingales'  tongues. 

For  my  own  part,  I  like  to  think  that 
my  beautiful  and  urbane  companion  is 
not  a  midnight  assassin.  Her  profound 
and  soulless  indifference  to  mice  pleases 
me  better  than  it  pleases  my  household. 
From  an  economic  point  of  view,  Lux  is 
not  worth  her  salt.  Huxley's  cat,  be  it 
remembered,  was  never  known  to  attack 
anything  larger  and  fiercer  than  a  but 
terfly.  "  I  doubt  whether  he  has  the  heart 
to  kill  a  mouse,"  wrote  the  proud  pos 
sessor  of  this  prodigy ;  "  but  I  saw  him 
catch  and  eat  the  first  butterfly  of  the 
season,  and  I  trust  that  the  germ  of 
courage  thus  manifested  may  develop 
with  years  into  efficient  mousing." 
281 


Americans  and  Others 

Even  Huxley  was  disposed  to  take  a 
utilitarian  view  of  cathood.  Even  Cow- 
per,  who  owed  to  the  frolics  of  his  kitten 
a  few  hours'  respite  from  melancholy, 
had  no  conception  that  his  adult  cat 
could  do  better  service  than  slay  rats. 
"  I  have  a  kitten,  my  dear,"  he  wrote  to 
Lady  Hesketh,  "the  drollest  of  all  crea 
tures  that  ever  wore  a  cat's  skin.  Her 
gambols  are  incredible,  and  not  to  be 
described.  She  tumbles  head  over  heels 
several  times  together.  She  lays  her 
cheek  to  the  ground,  and  humps  her  back 
at  you  with  an  air  of  most  supreme 
disdain.  From  this  posture  she  rises  to 
dance  on  her  hind  feet,  an  exercise  which 
she  performs  with  all  the  grace  imagin 
able  ;  and  she  closes  these  various  exhi 
bitions  with  a  loud  smack  of  her  lips, 
which,  for  want  of  greater  propriety  of 
expression,  we  call  spitting.  But,  though 
all  cats  spit,  no  cat  ever  produced  such  a 
sound  as  she  does.  In  point  of  size,  she 
is  likely  to  be  a  kitten  always,  being  ex- 
282 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

tremely  small  for  her  age  ;  but  time,  that 
spoils  all  things,  will,  I  suppose,  make 
her  also  a  cat.  You  will  see  her,  I  hope, 
before  that  melancholy  period  shall  ar 
rive  ;  for  no  wisdom  that  she  may  gain 
by  experience  and  reflection  hereafter 
will  compensate  for  the  loss  of  her  pres 
ent  hilarity.  She  is  dressed  in  a  tortoise- 
shell  suit,  and  I  know  that  you  will  de 
light  in  her." 

~~Had  Cowper  been  permitted  to  live 
more  with  kittens,  and  less  with  evangel 
ical  clergymen,  his  hours  of  gayety  might 
have  outnumbered  his  hours  of  gloom. 
Cats  have  been  known  to  retain  in  ex 
treme  old  age  the  "  hilarity  "  which  the  sad 
poet  prizedj  Nature  has  thoughtfully  pro 
vided  them  with  one  permanent  plaything; 
and  Mr.  Frederick  Locker  vouches  for  a 
light-hearted  old  Tom  who,  at  the  close 
of  along  and  ill-spent  life,  actually  squan 
dered  his  last  breath  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
own  elusive  tail.  But  there  are  few  of  us 
who  would  care  to  see  the  monumental 
283 


Americans  and  Others 

calm  of  our  fireside  sphinx  degenerate 
into  senile  sportiveness.  Better  far  the 
measured  slowness  of  her  pace,  the  su 
perb  immobility  of  her  repose.  To  watch 
an  ordinary  cat  move  imperceptibly  and 
with  a  rhythmic  waving  of  her  tail 
through  a  doorway  (while  we  are  pa 
tiently  holding  open  the  door),  is  like 
looking  at  a  procession.  With  just  such 
deliberate  dignity,  in  just  such  solemn 
state,  the  priests  of  Ra  filed  between  the 
endless  rows  of  pillars  into  the  sunlit 
temple  court. 

The  cat  is  a  freebooter.  She  draws  no 
nice  distinctions  between  a  mouse  in  the 
wainscot,  and  a  canary  swinging  in  its 
gilded  cage.  Her  traducers,  indeed,  have 
been  wont  to  intimate  that  her  preference 
is  for  the  forbidden  quarry  ;  but  this  is 
one  of  many  jjjj^llou^  accusations.  The 
cat,  though  she  has  little  sympathy  with 
our  vapid  sentiment,  can  be  taught  that 
a  canary  is  a  privileged  nuisance,  im 
mune  from  molestation.  The  bird's  shrill 
284 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

notes  jar  her  sensitive  nerves.  She  abhors 
noise,  and  a  ^canary's  pipe  is  the  most 
piercing  and  persistent  of  noises,  wel 
come  to  that  large  majority  of  mankind 
which  prefers  sound  of  any  kind  to  si 
lence.  Moreover,  a  cage  presents  just 
the  degree  of  hindrance  to  tempt  a  cat's 
agility.  That  Puss  habitually  refrains 
from  ridding  the  household  of  canaries 
is  proof  of  her  innate  reasonableness,  of 
her  readiness  to  submit  her  finer  judg 
ment  and  more  delicate  instincts  to  the 
common  caprices  of  humanity. 

As  for  wild  birds,  the  robins  and  wrens 
and  thrushes  which  are  predestined  prey, 
there  is  only  one  way  to  save  them,  the 
way  which  Archibald  Douglas  took  to 
save  the  honour  of  Scotland,  —  "  bell  the 
cat."  A  good-sized  sleigh-bell,  if  she  be 
strong  enough  to  bear  it,  a  bunch  of 
little  bells,  if  she  be  small  and  slight,  — 
and  the  pleasures  of  the  chase  are  over. 
One  little  bell  is  of  no  avail,  for  she  learns 
to  move  with  such  infinite  precaution 
285 


Americans  and  Others 

that  it  does  not  ring  until  she  springs, 
and  then  it  rings  too  late.  There  is  an 
element  of  cruelty  in  depriving  the  cat 
of  sport,  but  from  the  bird's  point  of 
view  the  scheme  works  to  perfection.  Of 
course  rats  and  mice  are  as  safe  as  birds 
from  the  claws  of  a  belled  cat,  but,  if  we 
are  really  humane,  we  will  not  regret 
their  immunity. 

The  boasted  benevolence  of  man  is, 
however,  a  purely  superficial  emotion. 
What  am  I  to  think  of  a  friend  who 
anathematizes  the  family  cat  for  devour 
ing  a  nest  of  young  robins,  and  then 
tells  me  exultingly  that  the  same  cat  has 
killed  twelve  moles  in  a  fortnight.  To  a 
pitiful  heart,  the  life  of  a  little  mole  is  as 
sacred  as  the  life  of  a  little  robin.  To  an 
artistic  eye,  the  mole  in  his  velvet  coat 
is  handsomer  than  the  robin,  which  is  at 
best  a  bouncing,  bourgeois  sort  of  bird, 
a  true  suburbanite,  with  all  the  defects  of 
his  class.  But  my  friend  has  no  mercy 
on  the  mole  because  he  destroys  her  gar- 
286 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

den,  —  her  garden  which  she  despoils 
every  morning,  gathering  its  fairest  blos 
soms  to  droop  and  wither  in  her  crowded 
rooms.  To  wax  compassionate  over  a 
bird,  and  remain  hard  as  flint  to  a  beast, 
is  possible  only  to  humanity.  The  cat, 
following  her  predatory  instincts,  is  at 
once  more  logical  and  less  ruthless,  be 
cause  the  question  of  property  does  not 
distort  her  vision.  She  has  none  of. 
vices  of  civilization. 

"  Cats  I  scorn,  who,  sleek  and  fat, 
Shiver  at  a  Norway  rat. 
Rough  and  hardy,  bold  and  free, 
Be  the  cat  that 's  made  for  me  ; 
He  whose  nervous  paw  can  take 
My  lady's  lapdog  by  the  neck, 
With  furious  hiss  attack  the  hen, 
And  snatch  a  chicken  from  the  pen." 

So  sang  Dr.  Erasmus  Darwin's  intre 
pid  pussy  (a  better  poet  than  her  master) 
to  the  cat  of  Miss  Anna  Seward,  surely 
the  last  lady  in  all  England  to  have 
encouraged  such  lawlessness  on  the 
part  of  a — presumably  —  domestic  ani 
mal. 

287 


Americans  and  Others 

For  the  cat's  domesticity  is  at  best  only 
a  presumption.  It  is  one  of  life's  ironical 
adjustments  that  the  creature  who  fits  so 
harmoniously  into  the  family  group 
should  be  alien  to  its  influences,  and  in 
dependent  of  its  cramping  conditions. 
She  seems  made  for  the  fireside  she 
adorns,  and  where  she  has  played  her 
part  for  centuries.  Lamb,  delightedly  re 
cording  his  "observations  on  cats,"  sees 
only  their  homely  qualities.  "  Put  'em  on 
a  rug  before  the  fire,  they  wink  their  eyes 
up,  and  listen  to  the  kettle,  and  then  purr, 
which  is  their  music."  The  hymns  which 
Shelley  loved  were  sung  by  the  roaring 
wind,  the  hissing  kettle,  and  the  kittens 
purring  by  his  hearth.  Heine's  cat,  curled 
close  to  the  glowing  embers,  purred  a 
soft  accompaniment  to  the  rhythms  puls 
ing  in  his  brain ;  but  he  at  least,  being  a 
German,  was  not  deceived  by  this  spe 
cious  show  of  impeccability.  He  knew  that 
when  the  night  called,  his  cat  obeyed  the 
summons,  abandoning  the  warm  fire  for 
288 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

the  hard-frozen  snow,  and  the  innocent 
companionship  of  a  poet  for  the  dancing 
of  witches  on  the  hill-tops. 

The  same  grace  of  understanding  — 
more  common  in  the  sixteenth  than  in 
the  nineteenth  century  —  made  the  fa 
mous  Milanese  physician,  Jerome  Car 
dan,  abandon  his  students  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  Pavia,  in  obedience  to  the 
decision  of  his  cat.  "  In  the  year  1552," 
he  writes  with  becoming  gravity,  "  having 
left  in  the  house  a  little  cat  of  placid  and 
domestic  habits,  she  jumped  upon  my 
table,  and  tore  at  my  public  lectures ;  yet 
my  Book  of  Fate  she  touched  not,  though 
it  was  the  more  exposed  to  her  attacks. 
I  gave  up  my  chair,  nor  returned  to  it 
for  eight  years."  Oh,  wise  physician,  to 
discern  so  clearly  that  "  placid  and  do 
mestic  habits  "  were  but  a  cloak  for  mys 
teries  too  deep  to  fathom,  for  warning 
too  pregnant  to  be  disregarded. 

The  vanity  of  man  revolts  from  the 
serene  indifference  of  the  cat.  He  is  for- 
289 


Americans  and  Others 

ever  lauding  the  dog,  not  only  for  its 
fidelity,  which  is  a  beautiful  thing,  but 
for  its  attitude  of  humility  and  abasement. 
A  distinguished  American  prelate  has 
written  some  verses  on  his  dog,  in  which 
he  assumes  that,  to  the  animal's  eyes,  he 
is  as  God,  —  a  being  whose  word  is  law, 
and  from  whose  sovereign  hand  flow  all 
life's  countless  benefactions.  Another 
complacent  enthusiast  describes  his  dog" 
as  sitting  motionless  in  his  presence,  "  at 
once  tranquil  and  attentive,  as  a  saint 
should  be  in  the  presence  of  God.  He  is 
happy  with  the  happiness  which  we 
perhaps  shall  never  know,  since  it 
springs  from  the  smile  and  the  approval 
of  a  life  incomparably  higher  than  his 
own." 

Of  course,  if  we  are  going  to  wallow 
in  idolatry  like  this,  we  do  well  to  choose 
the  dog,  and  not  the  cat,  to  play  the 
worshipper's  part.  I  am  not  without  a 
suspicion  that  the  dog  is  far  from  feeling 
the  rapture  and  the  reverence  which  we 
290 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

so  delightedly  ascribe  to  him.  What  is 
there  about  any  one  of  us  to  awaken  such 
sentiments  in  the  breast  of  an  intelligent' 
animal  ?  We  have  taught  him  our  vices, 
and  he  fools  us  to  the  top  of  our  bent.  The 
cat,  however,  is  equally  free  from  illusions 
and  from  hypocrisy.  If  we  aspire  to  a 
petty  omnipotence,  she,  for  one,  will  pay 
no  homage  at  our  shrine.  Therefore  has 
her  latest  and  greatest  defamer,  Maeter 
linck,  branded  her  as  ungrateful  and 
perfidious.  The  cat  of  "  The  Blue  Bird  " 
fawns  and  flatters,  which  is  something 
no  real  cat  was  ever  known  to  do.  When 
and  where  did  M.  Maeterlinck  encounter 
an  obsequious  cat  ?  That  the  wise  little 
beast  should  resent  Tyltyl's  intrusion  into 
the  ancient  realms  of  night,  is  conceivable, 
and  that,  unlike  the  dog,  she  should  see 
nothing  godlike  in  a  masterful  human 
boy,  is  hardly  a  matter  for  regret ;  but  the 
most  subtle  of  dramatists  should  better 
understand  the  most  subtle  of  animals,  and 
forbear  to  rank  her  as  man's  enemy  be-  / 
291 


Americans  and  Others 

cause  she  will  not  be  man's  dupe.  Rather 
let  us  turn  back  and  learn  our  lesson 
from  Montaigne,  serenely  playing  with 
his  cat  as  friend  to  friend,  for  thus,  and 
thus  only,  shall  we  enjoy  the  sweets  of 
her  companionship.  If  we  want  an  ani 
mal  to  prance  on  its  hind  legs,  and,  with 
the  over-faithful  Tylo,  cry  out,  "  little  god, 
little  god,"  at  every  blundering  step  we 
take  ;  if  we  are  so  constituted  that  we 
feel  the  need  of  being  worshipped  by 
something  or  somebody,  we  must  feed 
our  vanity  as  best  we  can  with  the  soci 
ety  of  dogs  and  men.  The  grocer's  cat, 
enthroned  on  the  grocer's  starch-box,  is 
no  fitting  friend  for  us. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  cats  and  kit 
tens,  whether  royal   Persians  or  of  the 
lowliest  estate,  resent  patronage,  jocose- 
ness  (which  they  rightly  hold  to  be  in 
bad  taste),  and  demonstrative  affection, 
—  those  lavish  embraces  which  lack  del 
icacy  and  reserve.    This  last  prejudice 
they  carry  sometimes  to  the  verge  of 
292 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

unkindness,  eluding  the  caresses  of  their 
friends,  and  wounding  the  spirits  of  those 
who  love  them  best.  The  little  eight- 
year-old  English  girl  who  composed  the 
following  lines,  when  smarting  from  un 
requited  affection,  had  learned  pretty 
much  all  there  is  to  know  concerning 
the  capricious  nature  of  cats  :  — 

"  Oh,  Selima  shuns  my  kisses  ! 
Oh,  Selima  hates  her  missus  ! 
I  never  did  meet 
With  a  cat  so  sweet, 
Or  a  cat  so  cruel  as  this  is." 

In  such  an  instance  I  am  disposed  to 
think  that  Selima's  coldness  was  ill- 
judged.  No  discriminating. pussy  would 
have  shunned  the  kisses  of  such  an  en 
lightened  little  girl.  But  I  confess  to  the 
pleasure  with  which  I  have  watched  other 
Selimas  extricate  themselves  from  well- 
meant  but  vulgar  familiarities.  I  once 
saw  a  small  black-and-white  kitten  play 
ing  with  a  judge,  who,  not  unnaturally, 
conceived  that  he  was  playing  with  the 
293 


Americans  and  Others 

kitten.  For  a  while  all  went  well.  The 
kitten  pranced  and  paddled,  fixing  her 
gleaming  eyes  upon  the  great  man's 
smirking  countenance,  and  pursued  his 
knotted  handkerchief  so  swiftly  that  she 
tumbled  head  over  heels,  giddy  with  her 
own  rapid  evolutions.  Then  the  judge, 
being  but  human,  and  ignorant  of  the 
wide  gap  which  lies  between  a  cat's 
standard  of  good  taste  and  the  lenient 
standard  of  the  court-room,  ventured 
upon  one  of  those  doubtful  pleasantries 
which  a  few  pussies  permit  to  privileged 
friends,  but  which  none  of  the  race  ever 
endure  from  strangers.  He  lifted  the 
kitten  by  the  tail  until  only  her  forepaws 
touched  the  rug,  which  she  clutched  des 
perately,  uttering  a  loud  protesting  mew. 
She  looked  so  droll  in  her  helplessness 
and  wrath  that  several  members  of  the 
household  (her  own  household,  which 
should  have  known  better)  laughed  out 
right,  —  a  shameful  thing  to  do. 

Here  was  a  social  crisis.   A  little  cat  of 
294 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

manifestly  humble  origin,  with  only  an 
innate  sense  of  propriety  to  oppose  to  a 
coarse-minded  magistrate,  and  a  circle 
of  mocking  friends.  The  judge,  imper- 
turbably  obtuse,  dropped  the  kitten  on 
the  rug,  and  prepared  to  resume  their 
former  friendly  relations.  The  kitten  did 
not  run  away,  she  did  not  even  walk 
away ;  that  would  have  been  an  admis 
sion  of  defeat.  She  sat  down  very  slowly, 
as  if  first  searching  for  a  particular  spot 
in  the  intricate  pattern  of  the  rug,  turned 
her  back  upon  her  former  playmate,  faced 
her  false  friends,  and  tucked  her  out 
raged  tail  carefully  out  of  sight.  Her 
aspect  was  that  of  a  cat  alone  in  a  desert 
land,  brooding  over  the  mystery  of  her 
nine  lives.  In  vain  the  handkerchief  was 
trailed  seductively  past  her  little  nose,  in 
vain  her  contrite  family  spoke  words  of 
sweetness  and  repentance.  She  appeared 
as  aloof  from  her  surroundings  as  if  she 
had  been  wafted  to  Arabia ;  and  presently 
began  to  wash  her  face  conscientiously 
295 


Americans  and  Others 

and  methodically,  with  the  air  of  one  who 
finds  solitude  better  than  the  compan 
ionship  of  fools.  Only  when  the  judge 
had  put  his  silly  handkerchief  into  his 
pocket,  and  had  strolled  into  the  library 
under  the  pretence  of  hunting  for  a  book 
which  he  had  never  left  there,  did  the 
kitten  close  her  eyes,  lower  her  obdurate 
little  head,  and  purr  herself  tranquilly  to 
sleep. 

A  few  years  afterwards  I  was  permitted 
to  witness  another  silent  combat,  an 
other  signal  victory.  This  time  the  cat 
was,  I  grieve  to  say,  a  member  of  a 
troupe  of  performing  animals,  exhibited 
at  the  Folies-Bergere  in  Paris.  Her  fel 
low  actors,  poodles  and  monkeys,  played 
their  parts  with  relish  and  a  sense  of 
fun.  The  cat,  a  thing  apart,  condescended 
to  leap  twice  through  a  hoop,  and  to 
balance  herself  very  prettily  on  a  large 
rubber  ball.  She  then  retired  to  the  top 
of  a  ladder,  made  a  deft  and  modest 
toilet,  and  composed  herself  for  slumber. 
296 


The  Grocer's  Cat 

Twice  the  trainer  spoke  to  her  persuas 
ively,  but  she  paid  no  heed,  and  evinced 
no  further  interest  in  him  nor  in  his  en 
tertainment.  Her  time  for  condescension 
was  past. 

The  next  day  I  commented  on  the 
cat's  behaviour  to  some  friends  who  had 
also  been  to  the  Folies-Bergere  on  dif 
ferent  nights.  "  But,"  said  the  first  friend, 
"  the  evening  I  went,  that  cat  did  wonder 
ful  things  ;  came  down  the  ladder  on  her 
ball,  played  the  fiddle,  and  stood  on  her 
head." 

"  Really,"  said  the  second  friend. 
"  Well,  the  night  /went,  she  did  nothing 
at  all  except  cuff  one  of  the  monkeys 
that  annoyed  her.  She  just  sat  on  the 
ladder,  and  watched  the  performance. 
I  presumed  she  was  there  by  way  of 
decoration." 

II  honour  to  the  cat,  who,  when  her 
little  body  is  enslaved,  can  still  preserve 
the  freedom  of  her  soul.  The  dogs  and 
the  monkeys  obeyed  their  master  ;  but 
297 


Americans  and  Others 

the  cat,  like  Montaigne's  happier  pussy 
long  ago,  had  "her  time  to  begin  or  to 
refuse,"  and  showman  and  audience 
waited  .upon  her  will. 


THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .   S    .   A 


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